


The Magnificent Eldar

by TheVictorian



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen, Heresy, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-10-16 21:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17553701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheVictorian/pseuds/TheVictorian
Summary: A series of short stories about a young Eldar Seer, her companions, and the uncouth barbarians of the Imperium. Not the faint of heart or the serious of temperament...and certainly not for those loyal to the Emperor.





	1. With Doom We Come - Part 1

 

With Doom We Come – Chapter 1

* * *

"I must say, Seer...I've heard many strange utterances from these _mon-keigh_ in my life, but ' _By the Emperor's shrivelled gonads!'_ is most certainly a new one."

Sinna gave the luckless Imperial Guardsman a kick, sending his lifeless body tumbling down the hill to join the ever-growing heap at the bottom.

"Indeed, I would not have thought these wretches wise to their corpse-seer's dessicated state," Rivaleth answered, expecting Sinna to follow up with one with of his infamously horrendous quatrains. But to her dismay he remained silent, and she reminded herself that he no longer walked the Path of the Poet.

It was a terrible loss to Varantha, all things considered. Not for the loss of talent, as Sinna and artistic talent were but passing strangers, but for the loss of the laughter and joviality that his works inspired across the craftworld. His "poetry" (if one might dignify it with that word) was so incomprehensibly awful that it was said to reduce even the hardest-hearted individuals to tears of laughter. As the mockery grew, so did Sinna's belief in his own genius, and as his ego swelled to titanic proportions the quality (such as it was) of his output plummeted even further, and soon references to his works, either in the form of quotations or subtle gestures hinting at his manic performances, had become commonplace on Varantha, much to the bafflement of those rare visitors from other craftworlds.

But if there were mirth and laughter to be found in these dark times, it was certainly _not_ to be found amongst the dirty, disorganised rabble encamped in the valley below. A company of the Imperial Guard, sent in response to Varantha's swift and thorough cleansing of human colonists, was now situated in what was quite possibly the worst tactical position imaginable. Humans lacked many things – intelligence, grace, dexterity, quickness of wit, basic courtesy, and personal hygiene – but one thing they did not lack was numbers, and thus the accepted wisdom when dealing with them was to fight them in such circumstances that their advantage of numbers could be negated. It was rare, however, that they positioned _themselves_ in such circumstances that their advantage of numbers could be negated. The humans below had chosen to make camp in a box canyon, and despite several opportunities to do so they had not relocated to a more tactically-sound position.

Another wave of Guardsmen charged towards them, firing wildly and screaming like madmen. Truly, these humans were crude things, Rivaleth thought. Their gait was clumsy and sluggish, and their thoughts were as simple and naive as that of a child. They had no concept of the war-mask; their minds were like candles in a howling storm.

Rivaleth raised her shuriken pistol and sent forth a hail of lethal discs, each carefully crafted to slice through armour and then tumble about in soft tissue. A half-second later Sinna and the rest of the Dire Avengers opened fire, cutting the humans down like grass before the scythe. As the front ranks fell, their bodies tumbled downhill into those advancing behind them, and the sight of their comrades dying in such great numbers was too much for their fragile psyches to bear. Panic spread through the ranks, and soon the rest of the Guardsmen turned and fled, having realised that advancing amounted to little more than suicide.

No doubt they would be punished for their retreat, she knew. In the humans' crude hierarchy, it was only the threat of summary execution that could urge their soldiers forward. Three times they had attacked since their arrival, always in the same manner and at the same time, and three times they had been repelled. Rivaleth could scarcely comprehend the stupidity of it all; even a beast would know not to stick its hand into a fire after being burned.

She looked aside at Silevil, who had not fired her long rifle once in the engagement. "My apologies, old friend. I had called you here with the promise of a battle, yet all we've had is a massacre."

"'Old?' I think we are both too young to be throwing that word around so carelessly."

She concluded her sentence with a subtle gesture, made only partially in jest, that suggested Rivaleth was entirely too youthful and inexperienced to be leading people into battle. There was truth to her words, she knew, but self-doubt served no purpose. The humans had to be driven from this world, by whatever means necessary.

One did not have to read the skein to know what would happen if they were permitted to remain, for countless other Maiden Worlds had suffered the same fate: Green would turn to grey, the skies would be choked with filth, and the whole world would become a belching, fuming factory feeding the Imperium's insatiable war machine.

But there was something else, something about the one who led the humans, that gave Rivaleth pause. She did not know his name or his face, but his life's thread burned brightly indeed, though it led to many a dark and frayed end, and she sensed that, if he were to remain alive, he would bring deeper and wider woe upon the Imperium than he could possibly imagine.

"I say, seer, that was a...that was a proper thrashing, that was!" The voice was slurred and uneven. "We...we really showed them, didn't we?"

She turned around to see Arradon emerge from behind a tree, stumbling and fumbling about. He bore the arms and accoutrements of a warlock, though his unsteady posture suggested that he lacked the total discipline necessary for the role.

Silevil eyed him suspiciously, before shifting her gaze to Rivaleth. "Forgive but, I don't believe I've been introduced..."

"I am Arradon, and I follow the Path of the Drunkard," he said, speaking in appallingly vulgar register. "Wandering wastrel, rakish rapscallion, malefic malingerer, frivolous faineant, and a terrible disappointment to his family, nay, the _entire_ craftworld."

"There is no 'Path of the Drunkard.'"

Arradon recoiled in mock offence. "Correction: there _was_ no Path of the Drunkard, at least before it sprang fully-formed from my mind. After all, why should my horizons be constrained solely by the paths laid down by others?"

"Drunkenness is hardly a virtue worth cultivating," Silevil retorted. "And such reckless self-indulgence will only serve to-"

"-to feed She Who Thirsts, _I know._ But it is only it is only the well of _excess_ that she drinks from, not mere consumption, thus I have spent the past cycle concocting a spirit so potent that it all takes is but one sip to induce total inebriation, thus rendering the very concept of 'excess' meaningless and irrelevant."

"Rivaleth, what is this person doing here?" Silevil, clearly annoyed. "Why have we brought him with us?"

"It was not my choice. Arradon has a peculiar habit of appearing wherever he is _least_ wanted. It is almost unnerving, in a way."

He carried on, oblivious to their remarks. "Have I ever told you of the time I once faced the full fury of the warriors the humans call 'Astartes'? Physically they were formidable, much more so than the mundane _mon-keigh,_ though mentally they had been mutilated beyond all hope of regeneration. I chanced upon them during an expedition to...to...well I don't quite recall the location of our confrontation, nor I do recall the name of this particular band of Astartes; I think they called themselves the 'Bloody Magpies' or some such absurd appellation...at any rate we came to blows after I made a few remarks they took as being rather impious, such as my jest regarding the best way for humans to cook vegetables, which was to set the Golden Throne on fire. Humans are, for the most part, humourless, and thus I found myself locked in mortal combat with this dirty, depraved band of deformed barbarians. Unarmed as I was at the time, I could only retaliate with whatever I had to hand...which just so happened to be a set of finely-crafted set of gardening implements bequeathed to me by my departed father. I fought them for five days and for five nights, inflicting grievous wounds upon them; it would surely surprise you that a trowel worked wonders in finding gaps in their armour..."

"There is something else I did not mention," Rivaleth said. "Not only is Arradon a drunkard, he is also a ridiculous confabulator."

"'Detriment' is a more fitting term," said Silevil.

Now his offence was genuine. "' _Detriment'? 'Detriment'_ you call me? Well, I'll have you know it was 'detriments' like me who built our craftworld-"

"That is abject nonsense. It was-"

Rivaleth stepped between them. "Look," she said to Silevil, "it would be best if you did not engage with his rhetoric. I suspect he knows what he says is absurd, and he derives some perverse enjoyment from confounding people with it." She turned her attention to the valley below. "Instead, let us consider the best way to rid this world of the human invaders."

"We would do well to avoid a prolonged engagement, seer," Sinna said. "The _mon-keigh_ do not lack for bodies to throw at us. Individually they are weak and cowardly, but combined their legions are nearly invincible."

She raised a hand, silencing him, and spoke to Silevil. "Focus your attention on their camp. I foresee an opportunity that is about to arise..."

* * *

Corporal Morozov's body fell to the ground, blood rapidly pooling beneath his head.

"The platoon commander has failed in his duty, and will be replaced."

It was said that no enemy of the Imperium could look a commissar in the eye, but even a loyal servant of the Emperor would find it difficult to look upon the face of Commissar Arcand. At one point a fleshborer round had taken off half his face, leaving him with a visage that was truly horrific.

Major Dyer would never dare admit it, but every time he spoke with the man it was inevitable that he would end up fighting down nausea.

"You are in the Guard to die," the commissar continued, "and the Guard will find a place for you to die. But I would rather have you die in battle against our enemies than die by my hand!"

_In other words, he can't kill the whole lot of them, so he'll just settle for killing the platoon leader,_ Dyer thought, trying hard to avoid looking at the commissar. It was such a shame – Corporal Morozov had been one of the less incompetent men under his command, though that was a low bar to hurdle.

Arcand approached one of the men, whose face was spattered with blood and bits of Morozov's brain. "What is your name, Guardsman?"

"Trooper Sefors, sir," he answered nervously.

"You are platoon leader now, Trooper Sefors. I trust that you will serve the Emperor better than your predecessor. Prove that my trust is not misplaced."

"Yes, sir!"

Major Dyer twitched. Did the commissar have the authority to do that? Not that he would have protested if it turned out he did not; if there was one thing Dyer had learned over the years of his service to the Imperium it was that it was never a good idea to antagonise those who had the power to make your life miserable (or, in the case of a commissar, the power to bring your life to a sudden and brutal end). And if he somehow ended up getting on a commissar's bad side, well, he still had his connections in the royal court back on Sternhagel to ensure that he never ended up facing the bolt pistol. It seemed to be universal truism that what one knew was always less important than _whom_ one knew.

"You see the sort of men the colonel gives me?" Dyer said as soon as the commissar was out of earshot of the troops. "Faithless cowards, the whole lot of them!" He kept his eyes facing forward, desperately trying to avoid catching a glimpse of Arcand's grotesque countenance.

The two men headed into the major's tent, where a freshly-uncorked bottle of Amasec awaited them. Dyer had yet to meet a commissar whom he could not ply with liquor, and keeping them in a constant state of mild-to-moderate inebriation usually made them far more agreeable. Nothing seemed to make Arcand agreeable, however; the man had apparently made it his mission in life to be as dour and humourless as possible.

"Miserable little planet, isn't it?" Dyer continued. "Nothing but trees as far as the eye can see, and everything is so bloody _quiet!_ I don't know why those xeno scum are so desirous of this world, but who knows how their foul little minds work, eh?"

"There are some things we need to discuss," Arcand, speaking in that hoarse, gravelly tone of his that made him sound as though he gargled a glassful of hot coals and acid each morning. "The men of the 997th are not fit for service. I have never seen a company of Guardsmen so lacking in discipline and proper military bearing. Many do not even know how to stand to attention or how to address a superior officer!"

Dyer knocked back a swig of Amasec, and for a brief instant he caught sight of Arcand's face, forcing him to muster every ounce of willpower to keep from retching. "That's what I've been trying to tell the colonel, but that contemptible little shag-bag isn't having any of it. I swear, he's deliberately trying to get me killed. Can you believe he did not even provide me with any artillery?" A smile suddenly crept up his lips. "But I have a plan, you see. It is true that men of the 997th could not hit the broad side of a starship if they were standing inside it, but as the old saying goes, you march to war with the army you have, not the army you want."

"And what is this 'plan' of yours, major?" Arcand asked, speaking the word "major" as if it were synonymous with "idiot."

With a childish grin he grabbed a canvas bag from underneath and emptied its contents onto the table. Inside were a number of small, plastic figures, which Dyer had clumsily painted in an attempt to make them resemble the soldiers of the Sternhagel 997th.

"Here is the brilliant new stratagem I have devised. It is so brilliant, in fact, that I have no doubt it shall become part of the _Tactica Imperium_ in short order." He began quickly assembling the plastic figures into a series of rows. "The men will march towards to the enemy in a single line like so, with the formation being about a hundred men wide and two or three ranks deep. Once they have closed to the distance to those damnable eldar, they will fire their lasguns simultaneously in one tremendous volley, and the sheer volume of fire being directed towards the enemy will surely overcome the individual soldier's lack of accuracy. Is there anything in this galaxy that can withstand the fury of a hundred lasguns firing at once? I think not, especially not those frail degenerates lurking over the ridge. Tell me, commissar, what do you know of the eldar?"

Arcand clenched his glass so tightly it seemed he might shatter it. "What does matter? Victory lies in destroying the enemy, not understanding them."

"Well, I've heard they are a dying race, but if that is true then why do they never just _go away?_ " he asked in the tone of a petulant child asking his parents why couldn't have more dessert. "Why do they insist of inflicting their vile presence upon the good, Emperor-fearing people of Sternhagel?"

The commissar sighed in resignation. "Because, major, one of their craftworlds lies in close proximity to our world. It is only natural that we would come into conflict, considering how perfidious and treacherous the eldar are."

Major Dyed recoiled in horror. " _What?_ Do you mean to tell me, commissar, that we have been living next to a nest of xenos all this time, and not once have we ever made an attempt to exterminate the lot of them? I shall have to bring this up with the colonel the next time we speak. I _would_ bring it up with the planetary governor, but these days he doesn't do much aside from drooling and screaming for dumplings every now and then...not that he ever did much else, mind you."

"That is something else I wished to discuss with you," said Arcand, lowering his voice. "The planetary governor has fallen deathly ill, and word is that he will not survive the week. With no heir to the throne there will almost surely be a succession war between House Dorroenal and House Ungern, although House-"

Dyer clenched his fists. "Warp take it all! Why are you bringing this up now? There's nothing I despise more than court politics! Is there anything more tiresome than hearing about how House Rumpypumpy is scheming against House Houghmagandie in collusion with House Fustyplugs...it's all so dreadfully _boring!_ House Dorroenal and House Ungern are both branches of the same family, anyway." What he left unsaid was that he himself was a member of the nobility, albeit a minor house, which meant he seldom had to worry about being murdered in his sleep as part of a power play by his father's brother's uncle's nephew's third cousin thrice removed.

Arcade leaned in closer, making Dyer shrink back from the sight of his grotesque face. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation, major. Members of those two houses command nearly every Guard regiment on the planet. A succession war will pit the entire Regimentum against itself, with each side viewing the other as traitors. Need I remind you that the last succession war on Sternhagel reduced half the planet's cities to cinders, and that we have only now just recently finished rebuilding?"

It made Dyer wonder, if only for a moment, if there were not a better way of selecting their rulers. House Haselburg, the family who produced the current planetary governor, had acquired substantial amounts of territory through marriage, and being disinclined to lose territory through the same manner they had chosen to marry within their own bloodline for generation after generation. The predictable outcome was that House Haselburg had become hopelessly inbred, and the end result was the degraded monstrosity now sitting upon the throne.

"Well, if there's a succession war looming then why in the Emperor's name did the colonel send me all the way out here?"

For a brief second Dyer thought he caught a slight smile creeping up the commissar's lips. "I can only guess at the reason, major."

Dyer narrowed his eyes. "Are you mocking me? Anyhow, I predict that this cunning new strategy will lay waste to our foes in short order, and then those knife-eared bastards will regret ever setting foot here."

The commissar finished his drink, stood up, and began slowly walking out of the tent. "Do you know what I think of your 'plan,' major?"

Dyer got out of his chair and followed Arcand outside. "You are overawed by its brilliance, no doubt."

"No, major. In fact, what you have just proposed is the most obscenely imbecilic 'stratagem' I have yet heard. It is proof that the officer class of the Sternhagel Foot Guard is more concerned with connections than ability, though your deficiencies as a commander were apparent to me the moment you manoeuvred us into the most tactically disadvantageous position imaginable."

His face flushed with rage. "How dare you! Just because-"

Before Dyer could finish his sentence, the commissar's head exploded.

" _Sniper!_ " someone yelled, and Dyer instinctively ducked behind a pair of large metal crates. Some of the Guardsmen fired wildly at the top of the ridge, while others frantically ran about in search of cover. Far from being the disciplined soldiers one would expect, their behaviour was more akin to a herd of frightened animals.

"Cease firing, damn you!" he screamed. If the men of the 997th couldn't hit a man at ten paces then they sure as the Warp couldn't hit a sniper lurking in the trees.

For a minute or so Dyer remained in cover behind the crates until he was certain he wouldn't have his head blown off the moment he stood up. He glanced down at the remains of Commissar Arcand, feeling a mixture of relief and disgust. The shot had taken off half his face; to Dyer's dismay, it was not the ugly half.

Still, it was a burden off his mind. He knew that Arcand would never turn his bolt pistol on him, knowing full well the political maelstrom that would result back in the royal court, but one could never feel entirely at ease around a commissar. Being outside the chain of command tended to inflate one's sense of importance, and every now and then one would come along who really did believe all that rubbish about being the living embodiment of the Emperor's will.

Dyer wondered how many commissars he had served with over the years, having lost count after two dozen or so. They had all gotten themselves killed, either in battle or in bizarre, inexplicable accidents that seemed to defy all sense or reason. The last one had died after a frag grenade exploded in his tent while he slept, and being unable to ascertain how such a thing could happen, Dyer had assumed that the man must have slept with a frag grenade under his pillow, and that it must have somehow gone off accidentally.

_Damned fool commissars,_ he thought. _They think themselves_ _fit to lead troops_ _just because they spent years at the Schola Progenium learning how to hold a fork and knife!_

At least now there was no one left who could oppose his plans. Victory was so close he could taste it, and it was about damn time, too. Tradition in the Sternhagel Foot Guard was that any regiment who suffered a catastrophic defeat would not be reformed (" _Wipe the name, wipe the shame,_ " the saying went). Instead, its surviving members would be assigned to a new regiment, with its old regimental number incremented by one. The 997th had the highest regimental number of them all, which was edging perilously close to four digits. Dyer swore that he would not be the one to bring that particular disgrace upon the Foot Guard...or if he did, that someone else could be made to take the blame.


	2. With Doom We Come - Chapter 2

With Doom We Come – Chapter 2

* * *

_Úhaelion'_ _s Folly – The Rune of Fatuity._ _Úhaelion_ _was a warrior who achieved lasting fame not for his bravery, but for being an idiot. In ages past, on a nameless planet, he was boastful braggart who, at the urging of his fellow villagers, went off into the woods to do battle with the deadly Terror Beast of Ú_ _nanwa._ _For three days and three nights he scoured the woods, until he at_ _last_ _stumbled across his prey, and for another three days and three nights he fought valiantly with his foe until, at long last, it lay dead at his feet. Not possessing much in the way of sense, and not knowing that the deadly Terror Beast of Únanwa did not actually exist, Úhaelion did not realise that the creature he had slain was, in fact, just a gnarled old brethil tree. After returning to his village with the uprooted brethil Úhaelion became a laughingstock of truly epic proportions, and to this day his tale remains a source of mirth and delight for eldar children across the galaxy._

_Despite its jovial aspect, the appearance of the Rune of Fatuity demands utmost caution from a seer, for it signifies highly unpredictable idiocy in the coming moments._

With a slight wave of her hand Rivaleth summoned the runes orbiting her back to her hand. Battle would soon be at hand, though the humans would attack at a different time than their previous assaults. Clearly, their enemy was learning, albeit slowly.

There, encamped in the valley below, was the ultimate expression of the humans' fallen state. Despite their crudity and stupidity, humans were not entirely without potential, or at least that had been true at one point in time. Now, however, they were little more than bloodthirsty fanatics, their tiny minds only serving to magnify their depravity. The Imperium, wheezing and gasping for breath, lumbered onwards, moved more by momentum than conscious will. How much longer would this obscenity plague the galaxy? Not even the wisest seers could tell.

Rivaleth tightened her grip on her witchblade and walked slowly towards the ridge, showing not a hint of the doubts that plagued her. Casting the runes was one thing, reading them was another, and there were countless ways she could stumble in her interpretation of the portents. But to pick one strand of fate out of the sprawling multitude was not a task for the timid or over-cautious. Perhaps she ought to have taken it as a sign of confidence that the Seer Council had chosen her for this mission over the others on the same Path.

The psychic energy of the human multitude below was palpable, despite the sluggishness of their thoughts. As dull as human minds were, they seemed to feel fear most keenly.

Sinna's voice broke her concentration. "By the gods, what are those _mon-keigh_ up to?"

The humans were on the attack, but unlike before they were not advancing as a disorganised rabble. Instead, they emerged from the trees in a single line three ranks deep, marching in perfect unison. It was a surprising display of discipline, if not competence.

Unfortunately for them, their formation had an exceedingly obvious weakness.

Sinna took half of the Dire Avenger squad and began running towards the eastern edge of the ravine, while the other half moved to the western side. Silevil simply looked down at the advancing throng and shook her head.

"At least they have some courage, I will give them that."

It was even more surprising, considering that Silevil had slain the Guardsmen's commissar after the man had foolishly stepped out into the open. That the soldiers of the Imperium required the threat of summary execution at the hands of a commissar in order to urge them forward was simply barbaric, but having these commissars dress in such a way as to make them easily identifiable on the battlefield was incomprehensibly stupid.

By now Sinna and the Dire Avengers were in position, having carefully masked their movement from the enemy (not that this was terribly difficult – humans were all but deaf and blind compared to the eldar). The Guardsman continued advancing in total lock-step with each other, unaware they were marching into their doom.

Then the Dire Avengers opened fire, and a terrible cry rang out from the human horde.

Two waves of shuriken fire swept across their ranks, and the Guardsmen's dying screams echoed through the ravine. They soon realised that their long, narrow formation could not withstand an attack from the flanks and so they began spreading out, but it was far too late. Those who raised their lasguns to fire found themselves cut down, their bodies torn apart by a storm of monomolecular disks.

" _Retreat!_ " one of them cried. " _The Emperor has_ _forsaken_ _us!_ "

Whether out of mercy or pity, the Dire Avengers held their fire, allowing the few surviving humans to escape the slaughter. A few stumbled over the bodies of their fallen comrades, which had become quite sizeable (and rancid) over the past few days.

Rivaleth looked down at the carnage below, having not even raised a hand during the battle. "Pathetic. How is that these savages were able to subjugate such vast swathes of the galaxy?"

"By outbreeding all other races, I suspect," said Silevil, looking over her long rifle. "They are a terribly prolific species, much to the galaxy's misfortune. Fanatical, too, which means they'll be exceptionally difficult to drive off. I once had the... _misfortune..._ of having to deal with the humans directly, during their previous intrusion into this system."

"'Previous' intrusion?" Rivaleth said, raising an eyebrow.

"Perhaps 'intrusion' is the wrong word. It was more akin a scouting party, no doubt in search of a world which they could subsequently infest. Myself and several other rangers boarded their ship and confronted the captain, who soon proved to be an extremely truculent and unpleasant individual. That he was uncouth and ill-informed was not surprising, but it seemed to me as though these traits arose less from his personal character and more from the Imperial dogma which had an unbreakable hold on his mind. The rest of the crewmembers were largely lacking in any kind of personality whatsoever, and their speech consisted entirely of propaganda phrases which they did not fully understand, and which they frequently introduced in the wrong place."

Rivaleth could not help but feel a pang of jealously, knowing that her friend had seen and done more in just a few cycles than most would in an entire lifetime. "I did not know you had such experience with humankind. You have never spoken of this before."

Silevil shrugged. "I did not think you would find it interesting. But unlike the gibbering of that imbecile Arradon, everything I have said is the truth."

As if on cue Arradon appeared from behind a tree, looking quite incensed. "Well, it seems as though I have arrived just in time to deflect yet another barrage of slander. I'll have you know that there is no one amongst the Asuryani who has seen more of the alien races than I. Do you know of the tau? Though they are horrifically ugly, and their architecture and aesthetics is even more so, they possess a certain nobility of character that can only be obtained by being utterly unlike humanity. The individual I conversed with – I believe he was a member of the so-called 'Water Caste' - was a pleasant enough person I suppose, at least up until the moment he was devoured by a Carnifex. I have it on good authority, though, that this tau did not digest well, giving the Carnifex a terrible case of flatulence that made it extremely unpopular with other Carnifexes for some time..."

Rivaleth deliberately kept her gaze away from him. "As I said before, do not respond to anything he says. If we ignore him he will eventually go away."

"But what, exactly, does he _do?_ " Silevil asked, clearly confused. "Nothing good can come of idleness. I have not been away from Varantha so long that I have forgotten your ways."

"He does not do anything, as far as I can tell. I have asked many others about him, and none could tell me who his family is or even where in the craftworld he dwells. I think we must accept that Arradon is simply one of those inscrutable mysteries of life and carry on with our appointed task."

* * *

"I don't wish to put too fine a point on things, but I'm terribly disappointed in all of you."

Major Dyer looked over those who had survived the disastrous assault on the eldar position, silently fuming over the grievous wound to his pride. His plan had been so consummately brilliant that there seemed no way it could fail, but those dastardly xenos had rent it all asunder. Being attacked from the flanks...how could he have ever foreseen such a devious and unprecedented manoeuvre?

He walked up to Trooper Sefors, who looked remarkably unperturbed despite the majority of his platoon being wiped out. "As platoon leader, the failure of today's assault rests entirely on your shoulders. If I were a commissar I'd have you shot, but since I am feeling merciful I will settle for having you flogged. I'm terribly sorry about this, but it's necessary to maintain discipline."

A grotesque, lopsided grin spread up Sefors' face. "Actually, sir, I'm not sorry at all about being flogged."

Dyer frowned. "What? Why?"

"Because it's my fetish, sir."

"Errm...well...forget the flogging. Instead, you shall forfeit sixteen days' pay!"

He was about to address the rest of the men when Confessor Magrath ran up beside him, gasping and wheezing. With the death of Commissar Arcand the old priest had taken up responsibility for the soldiers' morale, but in Dyer's opinion pious platitudes were no substitute for a good old-fashioned bolt round to the skull.

"Major, if I may speak," he said between fits of panting, "one of the men uttered words of _heresy_ during the battle!"

_You think everything is heresy, you_ _grotty old Emperor-botherer._ "Did they now?"

"Yes!" he proclaimed, his eyes bulging from his head. "I distinctly heard one of them cry, ' _The Emperor has forsaken us!'_ I do not know who uttered these words, but Emperor willing I shall find out..."

Trooper Sefors stepped forward. "Actually, those words would constitute blasphemy, not heresy," he said in an unbearably smarmy tone. "Heresy is defined as-"

"Silence!" Magrath snapped. "Disputing the definition of heresy is heresy!"

"I just think that-"

"Thinking leads to questions! Questions lead to doubt! Doubt leads to heresy!"

Dyer moved between to the two men. "That will be enough for now, confessor." He took a deep breath and began addressing his men. "You are soldiers of the Imperial Guard, and it is time you started acting like it! How could you have let these xenos best you time and again? These are not savage orks or ravenous tyranids, but weak and cowardly eldar – mincing fops who are better suited to frolicking naked in the woods than fighting good, honest men of the Imperium! They have no manly virtues, no taste for war, no reason to live...we will soon see them broken and defeated, or I am no true servant of the Emperor."

Magrath stepped (or rather, waddled) forward. "The vile xenos will employ every means in their disposal to deceive us and lead us astray. But fear them not! Do not be beguiled by their foul Warp sorcery, their profane technologies, or their taut thighs and firm buttocks! Look not upon the comely forms of their womenfolk or their ample bosoms! For the alien trades in treachery and deceit..."

Dyer began walking towards his tent, eager to get away from the loony old priest. Magrath looked about a hundred years older than the Emperor himself, and he was festooned with so many purity seals that he resembled some large, feathered creature. He suspected they were more for show than any ritual purpose, given the priest's questionable devotion to the Imperial Cult. Magrath did not even bother to hide the numerous data-slates he had in possession, all of which depicted members of the Adepta Sororitas in varying states of undress.

He sat down at his table and gathered the small plastic figures, putting the vast power of his mind to work in coming up with a new stratagem to defeat those damnable eldar. His original plan had been a sound one, save that it was extremely vulnerable to flanking attacks due to the fact that the formation could only direct fire forward.

Magrath continued pontificating, his hoarse shouting distracting the major from his ruminations. "... _their cursed heaving breasts, their blasphemous come-hither eyes..._ "

For the next half-hour or so he arranged the little plastic soldiers in various shapes and patterns, trying desperately to come up with a solution to what seemed like an intractable quandary.

"... _horrifying moans of_ _delight_ _, their terrible gasps of pleasure..._ "

"The problem," he said to himself, "is that no matter how brilliant a plan I come up with, the soldiers will invariably foul it up with their cowardice and poor execution."

"... _beads of sweat covering every inch of their naked bodies as they writhe in ecstasy..._ "

"The colonel set me up to fail, that's what he did. He knows I'm a threat to his position, and ever since I put down the food riots in the capital he's been jealous of my success. That old chair-polisher, doesn't know a thing about what it's like in the field, doesn't much care...he must have given me the most worthless troops he could find...probably the ones marked for a penal battalion or something..."

At last Magrath's ranting became unbearable. Dyer got up from the table and marched outside, just as the old priest was rambling about thrusting the "hot, throbbing spear" of the Emperor's wrath into the "warm, moist hole" of their alien foes.

"That will be all for today, confessor. I think the men are suitably motivated by now."

Before the priest could reply he was overcome with a fit of coughing, which soon became so violent that it seemed as though he were about to hack up a lung or two.

Dyer returned to his tent, despairing that his unparalleled tactical genius had yet to uncover a solution to their situation. He recalled something someone had once said to him at the Schola Progenium: _If you win, you do not have to explain. If you lose, you should not be there to explain!_ And Dyer had no intention of having to explain his defeat to the colonel, who would no doubt use it as an excuse to have him reassigned to Emperor-knows-where.

Suddenly it struck him. "It's so obvious!" he shouted, nearly knocking over the table. "It's so obvious even an idiot could have thought of it! Why did I not see it before?" He began furiously arranging the plastic soldiers into a box shape. "If the soldiers form a hollow square, then they can fire in _any_ direction, and there is no way they can be outflanked! It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"

Images of the eldar being cut to ribbons flashed through his mind. Soon victory would be in his grasp, and then could tell the colonel exactly where he could shove that Macharian Cross of his...


	3. With Doom We Come – Chapter 3

 

With Doom We Come – Chapter 3

* * *

"I think I was mistaken," said Rivaleth, looking down at the heap of dead bodies lying at the bottom of the slope. "I had once thought that the humans' only true proficiency lay in breeding. But in truth, their greatest skill is in dying. They can die in every way imaginable, and even in some ways that defy imagination. I foresee that should the Imperium persist for another ten thousand of the humans' years then their future surely holds many more deaths yet. Perhaps, in the fullness of time, the humans' indifference to life shall be visited upon them in a tide of retribution, a great wave composed of billions upon billions of corpses."

She took a deep breath of the cool forest air, the gentle rustling of the leaves and branches putting her mind at ease in way that nothing on the craftworld could imitate. The planet bore the name Sila, which meant "starfire burning upon the throne of the young prince whose name is mocked due to his sesquipedalianism and continuous pretending to be indesecratable" in the eldar language, and it orbited a pale blue star named Ela, which meant "the sword you cannot see, that cleaves wisdom from ignorance, which leads one to the pathless path of the knowable unknown to make obeisance within the presence of absence before the crystalline dome where moonlight glitters upon the obsidian throne."

Personally, Rivaleth felt these names to be insufficiently evocative and lacking in precision.

Like all Maiden Worlds, the environment and geography of Sila had been carefully crafted to be a paradise for the eldar race. It was also home to a large population of small, furry animals, whose appearance and docile demeanour produced an oddly soothing effect on the eldar psyche.

"Apologies for interrupting your meditations, seer," Sinna said, "but the _mon-keigh_ are doing something exceedingly stupid again."

"What is it?"

"I think you should see it for yourself."

She walked to the edge of the ridge and looked down. True to Sinna's word, the humans were once again advancing on their position, and at first it appeared that they were following the same tactic as before. It was soon apparent, however, that they had modified their strategy somewhat: instead of advancing in a line, they had gathered themselves into a hollow square.

Rivaleth could not help but laugh. "You see, Sinna? The humans _are_ capable of learning from their mistakes. They have learned the wrong thing, of course, but they _do_ learn. Bring forth the Shadow Weaver."

A few seconds later a pair of Guardians stepped forward, bringing with them a support platform that hummed softly as it moved over the ground. They did not speak, nor could Rivaleth see their faces beneath their helmets, but their body language was practically shouting " _You have_ got _to be joking, seer!_ "

"Your eyes do not deceive you. The Imperial Guard wishes to make things easy for us, it seems. I wonder why their soldiers have not turned against their commander; do they not realise he is only sending them to their deaths?"

After moving the Shadow Weaver into position, the Guardians carefully aimed it towards the sky, though the humans' close formation made the task of aiming a simple one. With a dull _thud_ it launched a billowing web of monofilament wire into the air, which slowly drifted towards the advancing Guardsmen. They looked up to see a scintillating cloud descending upon them, and even their sluggish minds quickly apprehended that their doom was upon them.

A second later, the entire company of Guardsmen vanished in a cloud of blood. The web of wire tore through flesh and bone like a hot blade through snow, and when the screaming stopped all that remained was a heap of severed arms, legs, and heads. A handful survived despite the loss of their limbs, howling and wailing and crawling aimlessly along the bloody ground before death finally overtook them.

The scene was truly horrific, but as always Arradon had a thoroughly inappropriate response prepared. "I say, this carnage we have wrought reminds me of the time I faced an armoured regiment from the human world of Cadia. It has been said – largely by fools and imbeciles – that this world produced the finest and most disciplined soldiers of the Imperium, and it soon happened that I offended them by casting aspersions upon their parentage and suggesting that their bloodlines were unusually rich in their diversity of species. Predictably I soon found myself chased across a world whose name I do not recall by a breathtakingly-persistent Imperial commander named Urgle Narcillicus Mumblecrust the Third. Alone and unarmed, it seemed that I was doomed, but the humans did not count on me doubling back to a location behind their position. There I commandeered one of their tanks, a belching, ungainly behemoth that I believe the humans call a 'Baneblade,' and proceeded to wreak havoc upon their ranks, stopping only when the tank treads became jammed up with the corpses of those I had run over..."

Rivaleth turned away from him. "I refuse to listen to this."

* * *

"It would appear that the attack did not run to plan."

Lieutenant Granit looked about nervously. "Evidently not, sir."

The sight of his men being ripped to shreds had left Major Dyer with an unrelenting feeling of nausea, and it took every ounce of willpower to keep himself from vomiting. The human body was sacred, and to see it so violently torn apart by blasphemous xeno technology was beyond revolting.

"I think it is time we admit a very painful truth," Dyer said. "I believe we may...we may..." The words were so difficult that speaking them was agony. "...we may have _underestimated_ the enemy. Just a bit, mind you; I am all but certain that our eldar foes are the sort of vile cowards who would capitulate when a stiff wind blows through."

The lieutenant looked at him askance. "What are your plans, sir?"

Dyer had decided that he didn't much like Granit – the man had a peculiar, shifty-eyed quality to him that vaguely hinted at insubordination. Still, he was the highest-ranking individual among the remaining soldiers – a resource that was rapidly dwindling. He did not know how many men they had lost since making planetfall, and being completely honest with himself Dyer did not want to know. Casualty reports and the like were something for the Munitorum to handle.

"It is clear to me now that frontal assaults would be unwise. We need to find a way to strike the enemy from a direction they will not expect." He the matter over for a moment or two, summoning his vast reserves of military cunning. "We could leave this box canyon and circle around to attack the eldar flanks, but given their vantage point it is likely they would see whatever it is we were doing. Therefore a new direction of attack must be considered." Once more he put his mind to the task, thinking so hard he felt as though his head were about to burst. "Ah-ha! I've got it! The eldar are camped on the ridge to the south. The exit from the canyon lies to the north. If we march northwards long enough, then eventually north will become south, and we will be able to strike at their rear!" He slammed his fist into his palm. "It's brilliant! Utterly brilliant!"

Lieutenant Granit gave him a look that seemed almost mocking. "Sir, this would require us to march along the entirety of the planet's circumference."

"And how far is that?"

"About 45,000 kilometres, sir."

"That big, eh? Funny, the planet didn't look so large from orbit...I suppose we _won't_ be marching northwards, then. If only the colonel had given us some bloody artillery! We could have blown those damned xenos to pieces already! I should have known that contemptible little jobsworth would sabotage my efforts! For years he has hindered my efforts! He has placed every conceivable obstacle in my way! Well I wont-"

His rant was interrupted by the hoarse shouting of Confessor Magrath. "Major! Major! I have fresh heresy to report!"

As the old man ran towards him, a sudden gust of wind sent a number of his purity seals flying into the air. This did not seem to distress him overmuch, and he continued fumbling towards to the major, panting and wheezing all the while.

"What is it _this_ time?"

"I think...I think we should speak in private," Magrath said in between gasps.

Dyer sighed and led the confessor back to his tent, silently hoping that an eldar sniper would take the blustering old fool's head off. The confessor held a dataslate in his hands, and every time he looked back Magrath would be staring down at it with a lascivious grin on his face. Dyer decided that he was better off not knowing what was on it.

"All right, what is this 'heresy' you wish to report?" he asked, taking a seat at the table and hurriedly opening a battle of Amasec.

Magrath did not look up from his dataslate. "A remark from Trooper Braddock, made in jest, but it is no less heretical for that!"

"Yes, but what exactly did he _say?_ "

"He had equipped his lasgun with an underslung flashlight, and said that it was now 'twin-linked.' His comrades had a good laugh, but clumsy jesting is no joke, major. One moment of laxity is all it takes, one instant of impiety...and one is damned to walk the path of heresy for evermore!"

_Oh, shut up,_ Dyer thought. "That is hardly a matter worthy of my attention."

Magrath's face flushed with anger. "The lasgun is an instrument of His holy will! Such disrespect offends not only the Machine Spirits, but the Emperor himself!"

Dyer wanted nothing more than to throttle the miserable old twit. If the Emperor were offended by the remarks of one solitary Guardman then the Imperium was in far worse shape than they imagined. "I think a mild reprimand will suffice, confessor. If it is heresy you seek, you will not find it amongst _my_ men. No, you would do well to look amongst the civilian population."

"Why is that?" Magrath asked, frowning.

"Because the citizens of Sternhagel are naught but a bunch of treacherous, seditious poltroons! I cannot spend one minute in their presence without wanting to shoot the whole lot of them! They prattle endlessly about their 'rights.' Well, what about their duties? In the Guard we don't speak about rights! We speak about our duties!" His anger grew with each passing word, until there was nothing to left to hold back his forthcoming tirade. "The only reason those ignorant buffoons sleep soundly and with full bellies is because of people like us who stand guard over their miserable existence. And how are we repaid for our efforts? With ingratitude and mockery! Don't think I haven't heard the jokes people make about our Regimentum!"

One in particular stuck in Dyer's mind: _How many gears do the tanks of the_ _Sternhagel Foot Guard_ _have? Four: reverse, reverse, reverse, and forward, in case they get attacked in the rear._

His ranting continued unabated. "Do you remember what happened when we tried to implement a planet-wide system of conscription? There were riots in the streets! _Riots!_ All because we asked them to do their duty! If the people aren't willing to lay down their lives for their homeworld than they obviously don't value it too highly. Do they not understand that mankind stands alone in a sea of alien filth?"

Once again Magrath glanced down at his dataslate, grinning like a lunatic. "If the people of our world need an icon of faith to inspire them, then they could do no better than Canoness Justinia of the Order of the Valorous Heart! Any man would find his faith bolstered should he gaze upon those luscious red lips, those strong, powerful legs, or her magnificently-heaving breasts!" He looked as though he were about to start foaming at the mouth. "She reminds me of my mother, she does."

"You can be sure that, were I in the position of planetary governor, then things would run quite a bit differently," Dyer said. "First, no one would be able to call themselves a citizen of Sternhagel until they had completed at least one tour of duty with the Guard. Second, we would send our troops to whatever craftworld our damnable eldar foes hail from and slaughter every last one of them before hurling their wretched world into a star! I'm rather curious as to why we haven't done this already...are we supposed to just tolerate having xenos as our neighbours? The colonel would never permit such an undertaking, of course, the faithless coward that he is, and the planet's leadership is too concerned with petty political power plays to recognise the threat." Suddenly, an idea sprang fully-formed into Dyer's head. "What if we were to contrive an incident on the homeworld...an attack of some sorts...for which we would assign blame to the eldar? If we could successfully pull it off, then the people of Sternhagel would be united against our enemy, and we would have full authority to launch an assault on the craftworld. The eldar are a weak and fragile race who flee to their webway whenever they are threatened, but they would have nowhere to run if we hit them where they live."

Magrath ignored him, continuing to stare at his dataslate with the expression of a man dying of thirst who had just stumbled across an oasis.

"First, though, we must rid _this_ world of the eldar, by whatever means necessary. Frontal assaults are out of the question; the enemy has treacherously positioned themselves on higher ground in order to give themselves an unfair advantage. Obviously the alien, being cowardly and dissolute, cannot fight fairly, for if they did they would be slaughtered in short order. As much as it pains me to admit it, the only way we can counter these vile tactics is to employ them ourselves. Tonight we shall send out a small squad of Guardsmen to infiltrate the enemy camp and catch them unawares. The eldar senses, you see, have dulled and atrophied over the millennia on account of their general degeneracy and decadence, and I doubt very much they will hear our approach."

The more he turned the idea over in his head the more brilliant it became. The eldar would never expect their own tactics to be used against them, and he could only imagine the look of sheer terror on their faces when a half-dozen Guardsmen suddenly appeared in their midst.

"Do you know what the worst thing about the eldar is, confessor?" he continued. "It is not their perversity or moral turpitude, but their pride and conceit. They hold mankind in scant regard, believing us to be inferior creatures, scarcely more than animals. But if that is the case, then why is it that Imperium is the mightiest force in the galaxy while the eldar are nothing more than fractured, scattered remnants? Do they not realise that the human form is nothing less than divine perfection, and that it is our manifest destiny to rule over the stars? Do they not understand that man is truly the greatest of all beings? Our matchless intellect, our steely muscle and thews, our indomitable will...we truly have no equal in this grim and bloody universe. Mark my words, confessor...we will not tolerate eldar arrogance for much longer!"

Magrath continued to ignore him, pawing over his dataslate. "Now here is Canoness Pulcheria...just imagine all the heretics' skulls she has crushed between her thighs..."

Dyer gritted his teeth. "You have an unhealthy fixation on the Sisters of Battle, confessor."

"I assure you, major, my interest in them is completely chaste. But I do wonder...they are kept apart from men for such great lengths of time, and if I were to suddenly find myself among them then they would surely find it most difficult to restrain the lust that has been growing in their hearts!" There was a wild look in his eyes now, like that of a Progenium cadet who had caught his first glance at a porno slate. "Or perhaps they might turn their lust upon each other, their naked bodies entwining as they moan and cry out in sheer ecstasy!"

"That's quite enough, confessor! You're fortunate that the Adepta Sororitas has no presence on Sternhagel, for if they caught you talking like this they'd put a bolter round through your skull!"

Magrath just smiled. "Could there be any sweeter death? I think not."

_Cowardly, incompetent soldiers and a drooling pervert for a priest!_ Dyer thought. _How does the colonel expect me to find victory with these_ _dregs of humanity? No, he expects me to come crawling back in shame and defeat, grovelling for his forgiveness. Well I won't give that loathsome worm such satisfaction! I will defeat those cursed eldar even if I have to kill all my men to do it!_


	4. With Doom We Come – Chapter 4

With Doom We Come – Chapter 4

* * *

"I simply have to know, seer, if...if...those tattoos of yours go all the way down?"

The finely-drawn patterns of vines and leaves did indeed cover most of her body from the neck down, but Rivaleth wasn't about to inform Arradon of that. She gestured to Silevil, indicating that, once again, they would do well to ignore every single word out of his mouth.

He walked to the edge of the ridge, running his hands through his unkempt hair. "You two are simply far too uptight. In that way you remind me of the Avatar of Khaine. Some time ago I was named the Young King, a chosen sacrifice to awaken the Avatar from its slumber. Stripped bare, and with runes of power carved into my flesh, I marched forward towards total obliteration, carrying the _Suin Daellae_ in my hands. It was a moment of great and profound enlightenment, as true self-knowing can only occur once the risk of spiritual annihilation is confronted. To my surprise the Avatar proved to be a most cordial host, and not the vessel of rage and bloodlust that I had expected him to be. We sat for a spell, we drank tea together, and we discussed the problems of the present, the past, and the future, and then the Avatar informed me in a tone of utmost solemnity that my salvation lay only on the Path of the Drunkard, a path as yet untrodden. It was a path beset by danger and strife, where I would suffer the mockery and imprecations of fools and imbeciles such as you two, and whose only endpoint was becoming a Dynast of Drunkenness, an Exarch of Inebriation."

"Do you suppose he contrives these stories out of the void, or if he has simply formed these fatuous fabulations ahead of time?" Rivaleth asked.

"I don't know," said Silevil, "but each of us, no matter how foolish, has a particular talent for one thing or another, and perhaps Arradon's lies in conjuring up these absurd anecdotes in an instant's fraction."

Arradon began wandering aimlessly about, talking to himself all the while. "And of course, they continue to speak of me as though I were not here. How truly, unbearably, intolerably _rude!_ They do not know that it is only I, the all-licensed fool, that speaks the truths others fear..."

Silevil looked back to the enemy camp, softly glowing in the darkness of the valley. "There are no more than a hundred soldiers remaining – a surprise attack would see them all slain swiftly. We have given them every opportunity to retreat, and yet they remain, waiting for death."

"As stupid as they are, the humans could do no other. They may hate us, but they also need us."

"I'm not sure I follow," she said, frowning.

"The Imperium was built on the principle of opposition. They must oppose something so that they may feel whole inside, much in the way a master cannot call himself a master without a slave. To the humans nothing is more precious an enemy, especially one they have made through their own actions, and which plays some vital role in the inner drama of their souls. You have heard this in that word they love so much - ' _heresy'._ The human language is a crude and barbarous thing, as are all human constructs, but that word defies simple translation, as they use for anything and all things, from treason to blasphemy to simply not liking the look of someone. I am certain that, should humanity defeat its enemies both within and without, then they would be finding heresy still. Perhaps they would name as 'heretic' someone who wore her hair in a way they found objectionable, or whose attire was not entirely within the bounds of the latest mode, and thus would begin a calamitous civil war the likes of which has never been seen..."

Silevil laughed softly. "Humans, fighting a war over fashion? I am sure they have fought each other over stupider matters. As for your thoughts on their notion of 'heresy' perhaps you are correct, but I think there is a simpler motive for their behaviour."

"And what would that be?"

"Have you heard the way the humans speak of us? It is so absurd as to be almost comical. In one breath they will insist that we are the greatest threat to the Imperium's existence, and in another they will call us 'weak,' 'fragile,' and 'degenerate,' incapable of looking even a solitary Guardsman in the eye. It seems that we are both too strong and too weak in their reckoning, and thus they are doomed to underestimate us again and again." Suddenly she turned around. "Someone is approaching us."

Rivaleth heard it too – three individuals moving amongst the trees, trying (and failing quite horribly) to remain quiet. It would seem that the humans had finally discovered the art of stealth, although, as always, there weren't terribly good at it, as she could clearly hear their footsteps and the sounds of the leaves and branches rustling against their armour.

But the loudest noise was their voices.

" _I am the darkness that surrounds me,_

_I am the air that surrounds me,_

_I am the land that hides me,_

_I wait to strike,_

_From the darkness..._ "

She gestured at Silevil to take cover, while Rivaleth did the same, concealing herself behind a large tree. The humans drew nearer, and when a gentle wind blew through the forest Rivaleth caught a whiff of the pungent stench that lingered around humans like a noxious cloud. Their attempt at remaining unheard were so pitiful it was all she could do not to laugh.

When the trio of Guardsman had passed by Silevil silently stepped out from behind the tree and levelled her weapon at the human in front.

He had just enough time to finish the last stanza of his prayer before her long rifle blew a hole in his chest.

Rivaleth sprang from cover, closing the distance between herself and the Guardsman in heartbeat. One of them turned and raised his lasgun, but before he could pull the trigger her witchblade whistled through the air, separating his head from his body in one clean blow.

She was about to do the same to the other Guardsman when he suddenly dropped his lasgun. "Stop!" he cried. "I give up!"

Rivaleth was surprised at this, and as one who walked the Path of the Seer she did not enjoy being surprised very much. "What were you attempting to do?" she asked, the edge of her witchblade a hair's breadth from his throat.

The sheer terror in the Guardsman's heart was like a bright, shining light in the psychic aether. Rivaleth did not imagine humans to be capable of such intense emotions, being the slow-witted and dull creatures that they were.

"We...we were supposed to...to sneak around behind your position," he whimpered. "Damn it all! I'm not dying for this!"

He was clad in drab green armour that looked woefully inadequate for just about everything the galaxy might throw at him, and his weapon, now lying at his feet, was crude and unwieldy in the way only human things could be. Rivaleth suddenly became aware that this was the first time she had ever seen a human up-close, and being in close proximity did not improve her opinion of mankind one bit. The Guardsman's foul odour was almost unbearable, and she had to fight to urge to put as much distance between herself and the human as possible.

"We could hear you coming from a great distance," Silevil said, wisely standing upwind of the Guardsman. "But why were you speaking to yourselves?"

"It...it was the Prayer of Invisibility, to keep us hidden," he blubbered.

Silevil shot Rivaleth a confused look. "You _spoke_ a prayer to keep yourself _hidden..._ "

"Um...well...I suppose it _does_ sound a bit stupid when you put it like that." He regained a measure of composure, and his fear quickly turned to fury. "Look, our commander is a frakking idiot! Doesn't even understand a bloodyflanking manoeuvre! I don't know why someone hasn't tossed a grenade in his bunk yet, but I'm not sticking around to see what his next 'brilliant' plan is. I'd die for the Emperor, but not that moron!"

Her only concern at this moment was getting this human out of her sight and sparing her olfactory receptors any more of his vile reek. "Then go, and tell your commander that if he does not depart this planet in all haste then we shall cleanse it of your presence with utmost alacrity."

The human picked up his lasgun and ran as fast as his legs could carry him, though his odour continued lingering in the air. "You are aware that they are not going to leave," Silevil remarked.

"No, I do not expect they shall. The humans believe us weak and frail...perhaps it is time we ceased indulging their imbecilic inclinations."

* * *

" _We're under attack!_ "

Major Dyer awoke to the sound of screaming and gunfire mixed with the hoarse shouting of Confessor Magrath. He slowly got out of his bunk, not believing for a second that his regiment was actually being attacked. No doubt the troops had gotten spooked by one thing or another, and it all it took was for someone to start shotting and the rest of the men would follow suit. It was only when a dying trooper fell through the side of his tent that he realised the gravity of the situation.

Unlike other commanders he was acquainted with, Dyer preferred to sleep in his uniform. He had heard stories of particularly treacherous and disloyal Guardsmen tossing grenades into officers' tents as they slept, and he believed that his uniform, being a potent symbol of the authority entrusted to him by the Emperor, would serve to discourage any such behaviour among his own men. Not willing to look slovenly, he spent the next few moments ensuring that there were no visible seams or creases in his uniform before grabbing his bolt pistol and stepping outside.

There he was confronted with a scene of utter chaos. The entire regiment was at sixes and sevens, with soldiers running every which way without even a hint of proper military discipline. Confessor Magrath, bless his soul, was trying to rally the men to his position, but his words fell on deaf ears.

When he glanced up at the ridge Dyer saw to his horror that the eldar were indeed attacking – at least two dozen of the vile xenos, clad in their strange purple armour, were advancing on their position with inhuman swiftness. To his immediate left a trio of Guardsmen were attempting to set up a heavy bolter, and they had very nearly succeeded when a sniper shot took off one of the troopers' heads.

Dyer fired his bolt pistol in the air in the hopes of getting his men's attention. "You will hold the line, damn you!" he cried. "In the Emperor's name I forbid you to die like imbeciles!"

He began looking for higher ground, some place away from the fighting where he might have a better view of things. That he should be directly involved in a firefight was inconceivable; in Dyer's mind 'battle' was something the troopers engaged in, while he remained safely at a distance. For the first time in his many years of service there existed a distinct possibly of being maimed or killed.

The eldar continued their inexorable advance, laying down a steady stream of fire that cut down his men by the dozens. He did not understand how this was possible – from what he understood eldar weaponry fired tiny metal shards that should not have able to penetrate the troopers' flak armour.

"We can't hold!" someone shouted, and when Dyer looked to his right he saw a pair of troopers fleeing towards the forest.

"Cowards!" he snarled, taking aim with his bolt pistol. "Traitors!"

He shot them both as they ran, congratulating himself on his aiming skills, and then took stock of the rapidly-deteriorating situation. The right flank had collapsed, the left was about to be overrun, and in the midst of this pandemonium Magrath suddenly handed Major Dyer a cup of recaf.

"Oh, um, thank you, confessor."

"Always good to die with something warm in you," he said, his fervour having completely evaporated. "Or inside something warm, as is my preference."

The battlefield grew quiet, with only the scattered sounds of lasgun fire breaking the silence of the night air. "We've lost, haven't we?" Dyer said softly, still not quite believing that defeat was at hand. "The colonel must be having a right jolly time right about now, that little arse-faced tosser! 'Let's send Major Dyer into battle with no tank or artillery support, and with the worst bloody troops I can find! That'll be a good lark!' I suppose I should be grateful that I won't be alive to see that smug look on his face..."

"There are few finer deaths than dying in the Emperor's service," Magrath said softly. "Dying between a maiden's thighs would better, of course, but dying for the Emperor is a close second."

Dyer scowled at him. "That sound suspiciously like heresy, confessor."

Magrath shrugged. "If that makes me a heretic, then burn me at the stake." His lips suddenly curved into a lecherous smile. "It would seem one of the xenos wishes to speak with you, and what a lovely specimen she is..."

He looked forward and saw three eldar approaching him, one of which appeared to be the leader of their little group. It was a woman of indeterminate age, with pale blonde hair and a pair of green eyes whose gaze could have burned through ceramite. She wore an exceedingly-ornate set of purple robes inlaid with gems and precious stones and adorned with all manner of blasphemous runes and arcane sigils, and despite his burning contempt for all forms of alien life it was hard not to be dazzled at such opulent attire. In her hands she carried a large sword, still dripping with the blood of his men, while her other hand held a small pistol that was aimed squarely at his chest.

The woman was flanked by two others whose faces were concealed beneath their helmets. One carried what looked to be a sniper rifle of sorts, and Dyer assumed that this was the individual responsible for ridding him of Commissar Arcand (something for which he was quite grateful, though he would never admit it out loud). From a distance one might have easily mistaken these vile creatures for humans, but one saw them in motion it removed all question as to their foul origins. They moved with inhuman swiftness and grace, as though every move and gesture had been carefully rehearsed and practised a thousand times, and when the woman in the robes stepped forward it appeared as though she were floating on the air.

"Leave this world and do not return," she said, "or our wrath shall be great indeed. We have let you live this day, and it is a mercy that will not be extended to you a second time. You were warned not to settle here, but you refused to listen. You have sown the wind, and now you have reaped the whirlwind."

Magrath leaned and whispered in Dyer's ear, "Look at the macro cannons on _her_!"

"Surely we can come to some agreement?" he said, desperate to save face. "This planet is quite large, as I'm sure you're well aware, and there's no reason why we cannot share it-"

Her response was swift and full of contempt. "That we are speaking is now a mere courtesy. Do not construe it as our desire for negotiation with raging primitives."

She spoke Gothic in a melodious, sing-song tone that had a curious effect of compelling anyone who heard it to stand up and pay attention to whatever she was saying. It was just one more proof that, fair or foul, all xenos were equally loathsome.

Dyer conjured up the pleasing mental image of a squad of Space Marines ripping the eldar to shreds with a barrage of bolter fire. They would not be so arrogant if they met the Emperor's angels of death on the battlefield, that much was certain.

Once again Magrath whispered to him, "I'll bet she's a real daemon between the sheets..."

He stiffened his posture, trying to maintain some shred of dignity in the face of the ignoble drubbing they had received. "Very well, you can have your little world. We didn't even want it, really. But know this, eldar witch: you might defeat some of us, but you cannot defeat all of us. The Imperium shall return here one day, in numbers greater than you can imagine."

The eldar woman was distinctly unimpressed. "Do whatever it is you will; it does not interest me until the future becomes the present. Look to your own world, and the forthcoming war that shall consume it."

He frowned. "What do you know about that?"

"There is little we do _not_ know. We know that the one atop your world's primitive hierarchy is but a hair's breadth from death. We know that your direct superior is praying that you do not return alive. And I know that your priest is presently engaged in intimate affairs with your sister."

He spun to face Magrath. "You _what?_ Have you been sleeping with Anya?"

The confessor started giggling like a schoolboy. "She's so loud I think sleeping would be rather difficult! Ha!"

* * *

"Astounding, major! Simply astounding! You have fallen short of the abysmally-low expectations I had of you, and surged to the vanguard of buffoonery!"

The bare grey walls seemed to be closing in on him, and the cold, grey eyes of the colonel were like a terrible weight pressing down on his shoulders. Still, Dyer wasn't about to give this miserable little pillock the satisfaction of seeing him cower before him. "I admit I was defeated on the battlefield, colonel, but what other outcome was there, given the forces you had provided me? No artillery, no armour, the very worst soldiers you could have dredged up...it's almost as though you _intended_ me to fail."

"You do not need my help to fail, major...you seem to have a particular talent for accomplishing _that_ entirely on your own."

"I believe you're being facetious, colonel. You have obviously forgotten my valorous actions during the food riots."

"Oh yes, how very brave of you, gloriously cutting down a horde of unarmed civilians! You brought five hundred men to confront no more a half-dozen rioters, who must have been so terrifying that it was all you could do not to bring five thousand!"

Dyer clenched his teeth, striving to the utmost to keep his composure. "I'll have you know that I came under threat _several_ times during-"

The colonel slammed his fists atop his desk, causing his dataslate to leap several centimetres into the air. "You lost _THIRTEEN BANEBLADES_ to a _HERD_ of _LIVESTOCK!_ How you've survived this long while your soldiers die by the thousands is a mystery only the Emperor can explain. I've spoken to the few troopers who survived the debacle on Sila. They say you sent them into fruitless attacks again and again. They said you did not understand the most basic of military tactics. They-"

"The fault is not mine, sir, rather, it is fault of the men under my command. They were totally lacking in discipline and motivation. Commissar Arcand must answer for-"

"Commissar Arcand answered with his _life,_ major! As you should have done if you had any honour! The 997th will be disbanded, and all records of its existence will be stricken from our accounts. As for you, I cannot have you executed for incompetence, for if I did that I'd have to half the bloody officer class. I can, however, have you executed for insubordination."

Dyer shuddered. "You may question my abilities, colonel, but you cannot question my loyalty! I have never disobeyed an order, and you know it."

The colonel grinned, a hideous sight. "Precisely, major! And on a wholly unrelated note, are you aware that I might assign you to any suicide mission I might devise, and that you will have no choice but to carry out my orders? Think on that."

"You...you would send a loyal servant of the Emperor to his death? By the Throne, sir, this is monstrous!"

"I know you are not the cleverest of individuals on a good day, major," said the colonel, lowering his voice, "but how have you not figured it out yet? _Nothing_ we do matters, because we _are_ nothing. We are just motes of dust floating in the great black void. In a hundred years no one will remember anything we do. So frak off with your worries about death. You are dismissed."

Dyer stood up and walked out of the colonel's office without a word, seething with barely-restrained rage. Losing to those prancing ninnies on Sila was bad enough, but having the colonel upbraid him like a disobedient student was truly intolerable. If he still had his bolt pistol with him he would have splattered that insufferable pudding-head's brains all over the wall, and no doubt the rest of the Regimentum would have cheered him for it. The colonel would get what was coming to him, Dyer was certain of that. And then he would make the eldar pay for inflicting such a humiliating defeat upon him. Emperor willing, he would see their craftworld burn.


	5. Dead Star - Chapter 1

 

 

Dead Star - Chapter 1

* * *

"Sila has been cleansed of the human presence, and all our kin have returned unharmed. Well done, child – we could have scarcely asked for a better outcome."

Rivaleth considered herself extraordinary fortunate to have Arveldir as her mentor. Kind, patient, and understanding, he embodied all these traits in such a way that one felt compelled to go to any lengths to avoid disappointing him. He carried a young Gyrinx in his arms, which purred gently in contentment, and every so often Arveldir would lightly stroke the fur on its head while whispering something into its ears.

"I think you praise me overmuch. The humans we fought were led by an imbecile – a man who sent them to their deaths in droves. On Sila the Imperium defeated itself; we were merely the executors of their will."

They walked slowly through the Garden of Tranquillity, an area of Varantha specifically constructed to be conducive to meditation and self-reflection. A small group of gardeners carefully maintained a diverse array of flora, some of which dated back to eldar homeworld, meticulously arranging them in patterns and forms intended to induce feelings of serenity and peacefulness. It was was here Rivaleth preferred to spend most of her time, away from the noise and bustle of the more well-travelled areas of the craftworld.

"That is not all you have to tell, is it?"

"No," she said, "there is something else. I allowed their leader to leave unharmed, for I sensed that his stupidity would bring a greater ruin upon our enemies than we could ever deliver to them."

Arveldir raised an eyebrow, seeming genuinely surprised. "Is that so?"

She hesitated in answering, trying to best formulate her reply. "Are you familiar with Sinna the Poet, who now walks the Path of the Warrior?"

"How could I not be?" he said with a smile. "There are...were...few who could so beautifully mutilate the art of poetry as he could."

"Then this human I speak of is to the art of war what Sinna is to poetry. His stupidity is exceptional, even by the standards of the Imperium."

Arveldir stopped for a moment. "But that is not the only reason you allowed him to live, is it not?"

Rivaleth silently chastised herself for thinking she could keep anything hidden from her mentor. "The few humans who survived...they were already defeated. I saw no reason to inflict further bloodshed upon them."

"An interesting decision, young one. Many in your position would have simply slaughtered them to the last." He continued walking along the narrow pathway that wended through the garden. "It is easy to feel contempt for the humans. They are crude, violent, and ignorant, a condition to which their Imperium has shackled them. Most spend their brief existences in a state of abject squalor and misery, their lives fleeting flickers of light upon the skein that vanish almost as quickly as they appear."

"Are you saying we ought to pity them? They have laid claim to the entire galaxy in the name of their corpse-seer, and they would gladly take from us what little we have left, given the opportunity."

"That is true, of course," Arveldir answered, carefully examining a small cluster of leaves on a brethil tree. "But what the humans desire and what they are capable of are two very different things. I suppose it is difficult for their limited minds to comprehend the vastness of the empire they have forged, but to eldar eyes its accelerating decay is abundantly obvious. Every day more of their worlds slip from their grasp, lost to rebellion or to their enemies...or simply forgotten about in the vast, all-consuming mire of the Imperium's administration. Simply put, they have far greater concerns than us, and as you have just witnessed they are far more adept at destroying themselves than being destroyed by us." He let out a wistful sigh. "Still, there have been times when we have allowed countless humans to perish so that small numbers of our own may live. A terrible thing, to be sure, but a battle for survival sometimes necessitates its own morality."

"Would you say we have chosen the lesser of two evils in such a situation? To let scores of human lives be extinguished, or to let a handful of our own survive?"

He did not answer immediately, instead whispering something to his Gyrinx. "Perhaps, but always remember, child, that choosing the 'lesser of two evils' is still choosing evil, and that by the commission of lesser evils one may be led to commit greater ones. Never assume that there are only two paths before you, for the skein is a subtle thing, branching in myriad ways such that not even the wisest can see all ends. But I sense you are not in the mood for a lecture. No, there is another reason I brought you here."

Rivaleth froze, sensing something vaguely ominous all of a sudden. "And what would that be?"

"Some time ago one of our ships discovered a derelict vessel of human design orbiting a pulsar not far from Varantha. This in itself is not noteworthy – the galaxy is littered with the lifeless hulks of countless voidships – but this particular vessel is extremely old, at least by human standards. From what we have been able to ascertain it predates the Imperium, from an age when the ignorant and unwashed masses of humanity were not quite so ignorant and unwashed. Again, this would hardly be noteworthy were not for the fact that one of our farseers, a woman of great age and wisdom, has experienced a vision of an artefact of our people on-board that vessel."

"What manner of artefact are we speaking of?"

"We do not know, nor is it known how it came on board a human voidship. All that _is_ known is that, of all possible futures, the ones most beneficent to us are those in which this artefact is returned safely to the craftworld, and that under no circumstances should it be allowed to fall into the hands of others."

"And in what way does this concern me?" Rivaleth asked, though she already knew the answer.

"I have used my...influence...with the Council of Seers to ensure that the task of retrieving this artefact fell to you. They were understandably hesitant to have this errand undertaken by someone so young, but I have every confidence in your abilities."

"I...I am honoured that you would-"

Arveldir raised his hand. "Perhaps you should delay your gratitude until you return safely. For you see, there is something about this mission I have not mentioned yet. We know that a group of humans will also be investigating the derelict ship, and I sense you take great displeasure in dealing with their kind...for completely understandable reasons, of course. They will not be not searching for the same artefact you are. No, their purpose is their own, and though their goal is not clear to us we know that it is simultaneously relevant to our interests and yet utterly _irrelevant._ "

Rivaleth frowned. "I am not sure what you mean."

"I am not sure, either. As I have said, even the wisest of our seers cannot foresee every conjuncture, for the skein is an ever-shifting thing. I have no doubt that all will become clear in time. Still, do not presume that your task is not without danger – I need not lecture you on the many dangers that may lurk inside long-forsaken wrecks. Should the situation become untenable then you and those that follow you _must_ depart immediately. The artefact on that ship is _not_ worth your lives."

Such statements did little to allay her anxieties, for she indeed knew what lurked aboard the mangled hulks that drifted through the voids. "I understand."

"Now you know what separates us from the humans, child. As I have said, there have been times when we have sacrificed their lives for the preservation of ours, but the humans...they do not seem to place any value on the lives of their _own_ kind. You yourself said that the Imperial commander expended his soldiers' lives in the same way he might expend ammunition. I must confess that I do not understand this."

"They believe that sacrificing themselves for their corpse-seer is the greatest of all virtues, and that the lives of individuals do not matter." To have to explain something to her mentor, rather than the other way around, was a very odd sensation for Rivaleth, to say the least.

For a moment his faced twisted into a cruel sneer. "Ah yes, their 'Emperor.' He is like a rock chained to swimmer's leg, endlessly dragging him down into the depths, but which he foolishly believes to be keeping him afloat. But enough about the humans. Speaking of them has a tendency to dull the spirit."

"There is something else I wish to ask," said Rivaleth. "What do you know of Arradon, the drunkard? He appeared during our mission – I am not quite sure from where – and generally made a nuisance of himself."

"Wiser people than I have been asked that question, and thus far none have been able to provide an answer. Arradon appears out of nowhere, seemingly at random, and his life's thread cannot be seen upon the skein by even the most venerable of our farseers. But I would not trouble yourself overmuch with him. Your first concern should be to enlist the services of a steersman, and I have particular individual in mind..."

* * *

Stars' End – a name that struck fear into the hearts of boozers, carousers, dipsomaniacs, and tosspots throughout the Segmentum Pacificus. Less a place to have a drink and more a blood-soaked free-for-all, the bar had developed an infamous (and statistically verified) reputation for being the single deadliest drinking establishment on the planet. This was no mean feat, as the world of Bardak was a festering hive of violence, debauchery, and sin, so utterly devoid of virtue and goodness that even an ork Warboss would take one look at the place, decide it wasn't worth the trouble, and promptly return whence he came.

Orbiting a dim red star and possessing a near ninety-degree axial tilt, Bardak alternated between seasons of searing heat and freezing darkness. It was difficult to say which season was worse, though the general consensus (if such a thing could exist on this world) was that the hot season was the more intolerable of the two, as the increased temperature resulted in the already bloodthirsty populace become even more irritable. It also had the unfortunate effect of thawing out the piles of corpses the planet produced as its primary industry, which froze solid during the dark season and which became unpleasantly pungent when things got warmer.

No one with any sense of self-preservation whatsoever would ever set foot willingly on such a world, but for Captain Malvolio there was no place else he'd rather be.

He carried his flagon of Bardakan dark, a drink so potent it could be used to clean up promethium spills (and it was, in fact, frequently used for that purpose). Getting back to the table where his crewmates awaited would be a challenge, no doubt about it. Making eye contact with another patron would be considered an invitation to a fight, so he had to keep his eyes focussed squarely on the flagon in front of him. Accidentally bumping into someone would also provoke a brawl, but moving to avoid them would be considered an acknowledgement of their existence (and thus would provoke a brawl), and so Malvolio had to chart a meandering course back to his table that would not result in him having his skull staved in.

One of the patrons had not been so fortunate, and two exceedingly-burly individuals were now cheerfully smashing his head against the floor. The floor itself was a metal grate, designed so that blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids would seep into the sewers below instead of collecting in puddles. This made the job of cleaning the establishment somewhat easier, though no one would be sufficiently foolhardy to undertake such a task. For those who dared to seek inebriation at Stars' End, the filth and reek were part of its charm.

"Please tell me you have something, sir," said Brida, giving him a look of vague contempt. The way his first mate said the word 'sir' reminded him of a nagging wife chiding her husband for not picking up food on the way home from the factory.

"We've got a job," he declared proudly, narrowly avoiding the gaze of another patron seated nearby.

"Does it involve violence?" Mansfield grunted, glancing up from the knife that he had been sharpening for the last few minutes. "Been itching for some violence lately."

"Well, I reckon this job could go one of two ways," Malvolio explained. "Either it goes smoothly, and there'll be no violence at all, or it doesn't go smoothly, and we'll get more violence than we can handle."

Brida was evidently unamused by his remark. "You still haven't said what this 'job' entails, sir."

From somewhere behind him Malvolio heard the distinctive sound of someone's spine being snapped. "It goes like this: our friendly bartender tells me that a few days ago this salvager walked in, talking crazy talk about a 'ghost ship' he'd stumbled across in the Alpha Orionis system. Now, a salvager ain't gonna live long if he don't know which wrecks are safe and which ones ain't; last thing you want is for you and your crew to be strutting into a nest of genestealers-"

"Like you did on our last job?" said Mansfield, laughing bitterly.

"And I got everyone out alive, didn't? Everyone that mattered, anyhow. So as I was saying, this salvager takes one look at this ship and he starts getting a real bad feeling about it, and the closer he gets the worse the feeling becomes and-"

"I think I know where this is going," said Brida, folding her arms across her chest. "You want us to salvage that ship. You have any idea what kind of things lurk on space hulks, sir? They're the kind of things they send Space Marines to deal with."

Malvolio sighed. "I haven't got to the best part yet. See, this ain't a space hulk we're talking about – it's a fully-intact colony ship from the Dark Age of Technology." He lowered his voice, terrified of someone overhearing. "Do you know what means? Think of all the archeotech on-board, just waiting for us to salvage it. And I'll bet my boots there's STC somewhere on that ship – we bring that back to the Imperium and every one of us is gonna get a planet to rule over, mark my words."

Brida, as always, remained sceptical. "If this wreck was so valuable, sir, then why didn't this 'salvager' claim it for himself?"

"Like I said, he said it gave him a bad feeling. Story gets a bit strange after that, though. After telling the proprietor of this fine establishment about it he went and got himself into a fight with the whole bar. And I don't mean he picked a fight with someone, I mean he literally challenged everyone in the room to attack him. After that there wasn't enough left of him to clean up...just dust and vapour. Didn't seem a terribly smart thing to do, and telling someone about what he found don't seem too smart, neither."

"So let me get this straight," said Brida. "You want us to go poking around on some ancient derelict, one that's already got a veteran salvager spooked, on the basis of nothing more than some idle bar room gossip?"

"That's about it, yeah. Look, I know this sounds crazy, but my instincts are telling me that this is legit, and have my instincts _ever_ led us astray?"

Mansfield answered with a blunt "Yes."

"Just trust me, all right?" Malvolio said, growling in irritation. Sometimes his crew could be frustratingly obstinate. "And besides, we need the money, and in case you haven't noticed our luck ain't exactly what I'd call sterling as of late. We find this ship, have a look, and if there's something gribbly aboard we leave. Simple as that."

After finishing their drinks the trio stood up and carefully made their way to the exit. "Sure I can't have just one fight?" said Mansfield. "Been a while since I've had a good fight."

"Last time you were in a fight we ended up scraping you off the floor. You ain't so tough as you think you are, Mansfield."

They stepped out into the dry, dusty streets, bathed in the orange-red glow of Bardak's sun. The streets were almost as deadly as the bar – walk down the wrong alley or look the wrong person in the eye and you'd find yourself with your throat slashed and your organs harvested for sale to the highest bidder.

At present, however, Malvolio was more concerned with the gentlemen standing before him.

He was clad in armour of gold and black, polished to a mirror sheen, and he wore a heavy fur cloak that looked appallingly stifling in Bardak's sweltering heat. The skin of his face looked as though it had been pulled too tightly over his skull, leaving him with a permanent sneering expression, and he had a hungry, ravenous look in his eyes that threatened violence to anyone brave enough to meet his gaze. What most people would notice first, however, was the conspicuous inquisitorial rosette hanging from his neck by a heavy gold chain.

"Captain Malvolio!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in mock gesture of welcome. "I'd call this a pleasant surprise, but I'm sure you'll agree that this is neither a surprise, nor is it very pleasant."

Instinctively he reached for his laspistol. "And if it isn't my old friend Inquisitor Brez...Bersk...Bersek..."

"Inquisitor Brzeczyszczykiewicz. How is that you have known me for so long, and yet after all these years you cannot grant me the simple courtesy of pronouncing my name correctly? It is quite disrespectful, wouldn't you say? And I do not have to remind you that to disrespect the Inquisition is to disrespect the Emperor, a crime which carries the death penalty."

"I reckon damn near everything carries the death penalty for you Inquisition types. Now that name of yours is a bit of a mouthful, if I do say so myself. How about I just call you Inquisitor Bob?"

"You may _not._ Now tell me, 'captain', are you ready to face judgement for your crimes, or are we simply going to stand here blathering at each other until I am forced to do something...grotesque?"

Malvolio quietly unholstered his laspistol, carefully eyeing the Inquisitor for any hint of a reaction. "You're mighty brave to be coming to this world, Inquisitor Bob, especially just to chase down a perfectly respectable Rogue Trader like myself. The Imperium doesn't exactly hold much sway 'round these parts."

The Inquisitor laughed bitterly. "A 'Rogue Trader', you say? Well now, that would imply you are an officially sanctioned agent of the Imperium and not a jumped-up scavenger with delusions of grandeur. You are simply too much, Malvolio."

"I got a Warrant of Trade back on my ship. It-"

"Your pathetic forgery might fool the officials of some planetary backwater, but not the unwavering gaze of the Inquisition." He clearly enunciated every syllable of 'Inquisition', knowing full well the power that word held. "This fictional universe you inhabit may be grand indeed, captain, but a true Rogue Trader is nothing like the pathetic figure you present. They cross the void in grand starships of unparalleled luxury and opulence, not rusting, decrepit pieces of scrap that are barely spaceworthy. Their mighty flotillas bring the Emperor's light to the dark corners of the galaxy; they do not pick the bones of the dead like carrion crows!"

"Well, it seems you've said your piece, and I reckon its only fair that I got a chance to do the same. Maybe you're right, Inquisitor, and I ain't really one of them Rogue Traders. But I don't think you're really an Inquisitor, either. Seems to me like any fool could make himself one of those rosettes and go around scaring the living daylights out of people, and something tells me the Inquisition has bigger things to worry about than the business of some small-time salvager."

"'Small-time salvager'...those might be the first words of truth I have heard you speak, captain. But while you may be insignificant, the consequences of your actions are not. You have traded in xenos technology...technology that was used against loyal servants of the Emperor. Shall I continue to enumerate your crimes? Unlawful contact with xenos races. Plundering the remains of the Imperial Navy's vessels. Harbouring unsanctioned psykers. And now I can add 'impersonating a Rogue Trader' to that list. The penalty for all these transgressions is death, captain, but even if you were truly innocent I would still have you killed, simply for being a man of such low character."

"Surely we can come to some sort of an agreement, Inquisitor? Aren't you tired of all the violence in the galaxy? I know I am."

He made a ghastly noise that sounded halfway between laughing and coughing. "By the Emperor, Malvolio, you just aren't very bright, are you? Offering a bribe to an Inquisitor? Even if I were to accept it there is no way you possess the wealth to make such an offer."

Malvolio sensed that the situation was coming to a head, and he would have to act soon...very soon. "You know, I keep hearing folks telling me that I ain't the smartest person around. And I figure that maybe...maybe they're right. But in all my years I never met the man who can outsmart a lasbolt."

With a flick of his wrist he brought his laspistol to the horizontal position and squeezed the trigger, silently praying to the Immortal Emperor that his shot would find its mark. That the Master of Mankind might be disinclined to fulfil such a prayer was something Malvolio would rather not think about.

Whether due to divine intervention or sheer luck, the lasbolt struck the Inquisitor squarely in the forehead and exited in a shower of brain matter. He just enough consciousness left to utter the word ' _frak'_ before he fell backwards to the ground, his face frozen an in expression of surprise and abject humiliation.

Normally, the sight of someone gunning down an Inquisitor would have gathered a crowd of onlookers. On Bardak, however, no one paid the grisly scene any mind.

"You...you just killed an _Inquisitor,_ " Mansfield whispered. "Emperor on Earth..."

Malvolio just shrugged. "Like I said, he ain't a real Inquisitor. They got their hands full keeping Imperium from flying off into all damnation; they don't have time to waste with people like us. Now let's get the Warp off this planet – we got ourselves a ship to salvage."


	6. Dead Star - Chapter 2

Dead Star – Chapter 2

* * *

_The_ _Jest_ _of Vaul – The Blade That Wounds The Wielder. It so happened one day that Vaul_ _presented three weapons – a bow, a spear, and sword – to the three greatest mortal champions. But when these weapons were borne into battle their defects soon became apparent: the bow's arrows returned to strike its wielder, the sword cut the hand that carried it, and the spear pierced the flesh of the one who hefted it. "Why has Vaul provided us with_ _such worthless weapons?" they asked. They soon decided that the weapons were intended to serve as an object lesson about how individuals often bring ruin upon themselves through their own actions, but not longer after one of them suggested that Vaul had given them the weapons for no other purpose than his own amusement. At last they agreed that these explanations_ _need not exclude one another._

_This rune is one of binary opposition and conjunction, and its appearance upon the skein signals simultaneous convergence and divergence of individual threads._

Rivaleth opened her eyes and summoned the runes back to her hand. She had spent most of her time aboard _Isha's Treasure_ in meditation, partly to discern what was to come, and partly to distract herself from the unpleasant feelings of anxiety that arose from travelling within the webway. The fear was irrational – the webway was truly the safest means of navigating between the stars – but knowing that her fears were irrational did little to diminish them.

She headed towards the cockpit, where she could hear Sinna and their steersman Calaeron arguing quite vociferously.

"And I say, the fault in your poetry is that it is wholly devoid of any emotional core," Sinna explained. "During your recitations have you ever known your audience to laugh? To cry? To shriek in horror? No, I do not believe you have, because while might you have succeeded in making them _think_ you failed utterly in making them _feel._ "

"A feeling arises, reaches its apex, and then fades and is forgotten," said Calaeron. "My poetry concerns itself with grand ideas and the great questions that confront and confound us. Where did we come from, and where are we all going? How do we reconcile our true selves with our public facades? How do we face the struggle between our desire for freedom and the strictures imposed upon us by our chosen Path? These are the questions I ask of my audience, and they shall linger in their thoughts long after the emotions aroused by your 'poetry' are long forgotten."

" _Bah!_ Those are questions children might ask of their parents!"

The moment Rivaleth walked into the cockpit they both turned their heads to look at her. "Ah, there you are, seer," Sinna said. "Perhaps your insight might resolve our quandary. You see, it is my belief that art must stimulate the emotions, to make the audience laugh and weep and cry out in joy and anguish! But Calaeron here disagrees; he insists that it should be about 'grand ideas' or some such nonsense."

She looked through the cockpit window and into the shimmering, kaleidoscopic tunnel of energy that was the webway. Immediately she regretted her decision, feeling a sudden sense of nausea. Seeing the webway through one's eyes was quite different from seeing it in the mind, and far more unpleasant.

"I'm afraid my tastes and talents lie with song and music, not poetry. But is it not possible that art might encompass both emotional evocation and a grand narrative?"

Calaeron and Sinna looked at each other. "Well... _yes,_ " said Calaeron after several seconds, "but if that were true then what would we have to argue about?"

"Nothing good can come of letting our minds stand idle," Sinna added before leaving the cockpit.

With a barely-perceptible shudder the ship emerged from the webway and into realspace. "I must confess that I have never travelled with one who walks the Path of the Seer before," said Calaeron. "If you will forgive my impudence, I find it somewhat...disconcerting."

For some reason his words were more amusing than insulting. "And what is it about me that you find disconcerting, Calaeron?"

"Not you, specifically, but the notion of opening one's mind to such...energies...unnerves me. I am certain you have means in place to guard yourself, of course; that is the purpose of the runes you carry with you, yes?"

"That is but one of their functions. They are a means of interpreting the myriad branches of the skein of fate and guiding a seer along a certain path. It would be impossible to describe the exact process of rune casting to one not of my Path; it is something one must experience for oneself."

"Of that I have no doubt." He quickly changed the subject, his discomfort obvious. "You said that your talents lay with song and music. Have you once walked the Path of the Musician?"

Though she had thought the memories of that time safely locked away, they came back to her in a flood of embarrassment. "When I said 'talents' I was speaking too liberally. Nothing I composed possessed any artistic merit, and it is better left forgotten. Fortunately, I soon reached the limit of my musical abilities – as insignificant as they were – and my time on that Path was brief."

She watched with curiosity as he steered the ship to a new course. Unlike the primitive vessels of other species, there were no crude buttons, switches, or levers with which to guide it. Instead, Calaeron simply laid his hand on a large, intricately-faceted crystal and _Isha's Treasure_ immediately responded to his will.

From behind she heard the sound of slow, unsteady footsteps, and she knew at once, without having to look, who it was.

"A cup of wine, seer?"

Arradon handed her a silver, jewel-encrusted goblet. His presence here was as aggravating as it was inexplicable, but decorum demanded that she show him at least a modicum of courtesy.

"Um...thank you..."

Calaeron spun his seat around, looking horrified. "Seer, who is this person? He was not on-board when we departed!"

"This is Arradon," Rivaleth said. "He has a habit of making an appearance wherever he is least wanted."

"Arradon? A drunkard?" said Calaeron, evidently familiar with his reputation.

"That's _the_ drunkard to you!" he snapped. "There is no one on Varantha, or any other craftworld for that matter, who is my equal in intoxication. They tell me my...indulgences...are inimical, that my whims are woeful, and that my habits are harmful. They say that to drink myself into a stupor from which only a supernova might rouse me is to feed She Who Thirsts, but I have ways of confounding that vile entity that would make the Laughing God blush in embarrassment."

Calaeron looked at her in abject dismay and gestured in such a manner as to say, "He has used such a dreadfully impolite register that I'm not going to dignify his words with a response."

Rivaleth stepped forward and turned her neck to look out the cockpit window. In the distance shone a nameless pulsar, the still-beating heart of a long-dead star beaming the last of its energy into a cold, uncaring universe. The radiation from the stellar remnant illuminated the surrounding dust and gas, bathing the entire system in a pale blue glow.

"We are approaching the human vessel," said Calaeron, and a second later an image of the ship appeared above a small white crystal set into the console.

She had expected to look like any other vessel of the Imperium – a ghastly collection of spires, buttresses, arches, and pinnacles that was every bit as brutish and barbaric as the Imperium itself. Yet while the ship was sorely lacking in aesthetics and hopelessly enthralled to the wretched philosophy of functionalism, it was immediately apparent that it was far older than the typical Imperial voidcraft. It resembled a flying slab of metal, being long, rectangular, and almost completely devoid of any distinguishing features save for a pair of engines and a small, wedge-shaped protuberance located on the dorsal side.

Rivaleth took a sip of wine from the goblet Arradon had given her. To her surprise, it was far more pleasing to the tongue than she had anticipated, and to her great chagrin she was unable to conceal her reaction from the drunken fool.

"Ah, seer, I see by your expression that you have never in your life experienced such a marvellous potation. It is my own personal concoction, the exact formulation of which is a secret that I shall never reveal to anyone. I _would_ say that I will take it with me to my grave, but I have made the decision that I shall never die. Indeed, I shall battle the forces of death and She Who Thirsts with the matchless power of alcohol, my besotted mind and body becoming the very means by which our people shall achieve salvation. The people of Biel-Tan might speak of reclaiming the old empire, but they never succeed without my inebriants...my booze!"

Calaeron opened his mouth to say something before Rivaleth stopped him. "I would suggest not responding to anything he says. It only encourages him."

"I'm still not certain how he managed to get on-board this vessel."

"Wiser people than me have been unable to answer that question." She looked back at the image of the human ship. "Are you detecting any signs of life on-board?"

"No, seer. Yet it is not completely lifeless; I am sensing that it still has power, and that it's life-support systems are still functioning. I am not sure how- He looked back at the display, distracted by something. "I am detecting another ship approaching. Its engines are emitting a large quantity of radioactive material. "

"It is a human ship, and their presence here was foreseen," she explained. "Their purpose is not our purpose, and it is my intention to avoid a confrontation with them. Of course, knowing the humans' predilection towards xenophobic violence this may prove impossible."

The image of this new ship appeared above the crystal, and while it was every bit as hideous as any other voidship of human design, this one demonstrated hitherto unseen means of offending the eye. To Rivaleth it looked like a bird, albeit a diseased, morbidly obese bird that was surrounded by a glowing nimbus of radioactive gas and dust. "It appears too small to be capable of transiting the warp. Where did it come from?"

"There is a settled world orbiting this system's companion star," said Silevil, quietly entering the cockpit. "Although perhaps 'settled' is not the correct word. These humans are likely scavengers, come to strip this derelict vessel of anything of value."

"If that is the case, then why is it that no one has discovered this ship until now?" Rivaleth asked.

"I believe I can answer that, seer," said Calaeron. "It is on a highly-eccentric orbit, and will not have passed near the companion star in over 16,000 cycles."

"Activate the holofield. We have no quarrel with them, but I do not trust these humans not to turn violent."

Silevil laughed bitterly. "Of course they will. Our very presence offends them, turns them fierce. They cannot abide the fact that the universe is not infinitely-faceted mirror reflecting back at them their own magnificence on its every face. The moment we set foot on that ship they will assume we are there to thwart their purposes; they cannot conceive of events occurring that are not part of some nefarious plot against them or their Imperium."

"I suspect you may be right. Still, let us endeavour to avoid a bloodbath if possible. Humans are just as easy to deceive as they are to kill."

* * *

Malvolio climbed the rusty, rickety metal stairs leading to the cockpit, muttering curses under his breath all the while. "Hey Grub! The engines are making a _clickety-clackety thunk-thunk-bang-bang_ kind of noise. I reckon you ought to do something about that."

Grub lazily spun around in his chair. "I wouldn't worry about it, captain. It's just the port-side plasma induction manifold working its way out of alignment, and it'll be a week before the problem gets really serious."

"And just what'll happen when it gets 'really serious'?"

"Well, captain, what will happen is that the engines will explode and we'll all die. But as I said, it'll take a week or more before that happens. And besides, do I look like one of them cogboys to you? I just fly the ship."

Grub's casual, dismissive attitude was grating at the best of times, but now, with so much at stake, it was positively insufferable. "I didn't pay good money for the _Heart of Glory_ just for you to treat her like a piece of trash, Grub."

"Look, captain, I don't want to put too fine a point on things, but this ship _is_ a piece of trash. And by that I mean you literally bought it from a junk salesman. It's so old that it was probably built back when the Emperor was still in nappies."

He looked out of the dirty, weathered glass of the cockpit, trying to locate their quarry amidst the stars. Somewhere out there, in the dim glow of the pulsar, was a ship full of archeotech just waiting to be salvaged. "Well I reckon if everything goes to plan we won't have to fly around in this piece of 'trash' any more, will we?"

"Since when has _anything_ gone to plan?" Brida asked, stepping into the light. "We still don't know what's on that ship. If it's full of genestealers then that changes the situation, doesn't it?"

"I know it changes the situations, Brida. It makes it more fun!"

She glared at him, looking like she wanted nothing more than to wring his neck. " _Fun?_ Sir, do I have to remind you that genestealer claws can rip through the armour of a Space Marine?"

"Then we won't let 'em get close to us, now will we?"

Heavy footfalls announced Mansfield's entry into the cockpit. "I _hope_ there's something on-board," he declared with a psychotic smirk on his face before looking down at his meltagun. "Something to kill. Been a while since I've had a chance to use ol' Layla here."

Grub laughed his obnoxious, irritating laugh. "'Layla'? You give names to your guns?"

"Damn right I do! You treat a gun right, keep her clean and polished, and she'll be more faithful to you than any lady." He then began stroking the meltagun in a way that Malvolio found deeply disturbing.

Something started beeping on the cockpit panel. "Uh, we got another ship incoming," said Grub as he clumsily pushed a number of buttons and switches. "It's, uh, it's moving fast. Real fast."

Malvolio felt a sudden chill down his spine. "What kind of ship?"

Grub pushed some more buttons, and for a brief instant a the image of a ship appeared above the hololith before winking out of existence. "Damn piece of garbage!" he growled, giving the side of a console a few good kicks before the image reappeared.

Instead of a ship, however, all that Malvolio could see was a blur of colours and shapes that occasionally resolved itself into something resembling a spacecraft. "I'm having trouble getting a lock on it, captain. The auspex just doesn't want to stay focussed on it. It's like the ship is there one moment and gone the next."

Malvolio stepped forward, letting out a few choice bits of profanity. " _Eldar..._ "

"Sir?" said Brida, appearing worried for a second.

He tried (and failed) to keep the fear out of his voice. "Only eldar ships cloak themselves like that. And only eldar ships move that fast. Are they coming towards us?"

"Um...it doesn't look like it, captain. At least, not _right_ towards us. But they're heading towards the same ship we are."

"Most people don't know this," Malvolio began, speaking in a hushed tone, "but there are two kinds of eldar in the galaxy. The first kind are craftworld folk, and they'll usually leave you alone unless you got something they want. And the other kind...well...let's just say that you don't want to find out what happens when they catch up to you. Grub, have they detected us?"

He threw up his hands. "Damned if I know, captain. With the kind of tech they have they could be reading our thoughts at this very moment for all we know."

"Question is, what are they doing here?" Brida said, moving to look out the cockpit window. "They aren't exactly known for scavenging old tech."

Malvolio flashed her a hateful look. "Ain't it obvious? They're here for the STC on-board that ship! Eldar are arrogant bastards, and they love making everyone else dance to their tune. I'm sure they'd like nothing more than to ransom our own tech back to us!"

"Then we kill em'," grunted Mansfield. "Don't see what you're so worked up about."

"You know what the worst thing about eldar is?" he continued, ignoring him. "It ain't that they're all high-and-mighty, it's that they can actually back up it. When I was in the Guard I used to hear stories about them, how they could kill you with their brains, or how they knew every move you'd make before you even made it."

Mansfield just shrugged. "They still die if you shoot em'." He unsheathed his knife and began examining his reflection in the blade. "Gonna get me an ear or two as a trophy..."

"Look, it ain't that simple! Those eldar, they ain't human, they don't think human, and they sure as hell don't _act_ human. Everything they do is...is some kind of plot inside a scheme inside a trick leading to a trap!"

"That sounds like coward talk to me," Mansfield sneered. "Guess I shouldn't expect anything else from a deserter."

Malvolio stormed up to him, fists clenched. "How long is it gonna take you to figure out that don't hurt me, Mansfield? Yeah, I deserted the Guard, and you would too if you'd seen the things I've seen. We fought a war against a flock of bloodthirsty owls that descended from the treetops every night to terrorise the folk, and you know what? _We lost._ "

Mansfield stepped back, confused. "Owls…?"

"Sometimes, at night, I can still hear the hooting..."

"All right, we're coming up on the ship," said Grub, grabbing a metal flagon from underneath his chair and taking a swig. A loud buzzing sound made him jump and spill the drink all over the controls.

"What's that about?" Malvolio asked.

"It's uh...it's nothing, captain. It's just that the pulsar is putting out a lot of radiation...or maybe it's our engines. Or maybe it's both. We'll be fine, though. I think."

Malvolio shuffled his way forward, knocking over a pile of rubbish that Grub had stashed by the console. After awkwardly positioning himself to get a clear view of the derelict ship, he was overcome with a crushing sense of disappointment. It seemed to his eyes that it resembled a gigantic paving stone hurled into the void, with none of the flourishes and ornamentation that made the mighty warships of the Imperial Navy so impressive.

"It's so...ugly."

"I don't know, sir," Grub said, hastily wiping up the spilled drink with an oily rag. "It could be the ugliest ship in this whole frakkin' galaxy for all I care."

"Lifesigns?"

"Um...let me see...it doesn't look like it, captain. I mean, unless the auspex is buggered, in which case that ship could be filled with Emperor-knows-what." Something on the panel caught his eye. "Well that's odd...I'm picking up a power signature. Looks like life support is still active...that can't be right!"

Brida, normally unflappable even in the worst circumstances, now looked distinctly unnerved. "Sir, I don't like this. That ship is from the Dark of Technology. I know the stories they tell of that time...Men of Iron, abominable intelligence..."

As the _Heart of Glory_ drew nearer to the derelict, Malvolio realised that it was not as featureless as it had first appeared. There were rows upon rows of narrow, rectangular windows running along the side of the ship, and the words _HOPE ETERNAL_ were written in large, black letters upon the hull. He was left wondering what the purpose of the ship was and why it had ended up adrift – there were no visible weapons or armaments, and no sign of any battle damage.

"Grub, start looking for a docking port or a shuttle bay or something." He then turned to address the others. "As I'm sure you're aware, there could be all kinds of nasty things lurking on that hulk out there. Orks, genestealers, maybe something even worse...so stay sharp, keep your guard up, and shoot anything that moves. As for our eldar 'friends,' well, I don't know what you've heard, but they're cowards who will run from a battle the first chance they get. They can't beat us in a stand-up fight and they know it, so they've got to resort to trickery and jiggery-pokery to win the day. And that means, ladies and gentlemen, that we don't play their game. We don't fall for their tricks or listen to their lies, 'cause everything they say is a lie, even the stuff that's true."

It was as good a speech as he had ever given, he thought. In truth he had never even seen an eldar before, let alone faced one on the battlefield. Everything he knew about them had he learned from his primer back in the Imperial Guard, and while he suspected that it might have exaggerated the xenos' weaknesses for the purpose of boosting morale, he had always assumed that the information contained within was largely truthful.

"Now, I ain't saying this going to be easy," he continued. "But we pull this off, and we're going to live like kings for the rest of our lives. Maybe we'll even get to be Rogue Traders for real, and then not even the Inquisition will be able to touch us!"

"The Inquisition?" Mansfield said, scowling. "I thought you said that bloke you wasted wasn't really an Inquisitor!"

"Well, maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. But even if he were an Inquisitor there ain't no way they're gonna track us down. Their kind rely more on their reputation than skill, just like those damned eldar over there. All right, that's enough jawing out of me. Let's grab our guns and head out."


	7. Dead Star – Chapter 3

Dead Star – Chapter 3

* * *

Under Calaeron's careful guidance _Isha's Treasure_ slowly approached one of the derelict vessel's docking ports, and when it had finished manoeuvring into position the docking umbilical silently extended towards the hull of the human ship.

Rivaleth and the others had gathered in the airlock awaiting the completion of the docking procedure. She felt a mixture of fear and anticipation, and while she would never admit it she felt a certain curiosity about pre-Imperium human technology. This ship dated to a time before their Emperor had revealed himself and led the human race to ruin – a time when the humans' potential had not yet been wholly extinguished by ignorance and fanaticism.

Calaeron's voice came through the communication crystal below her right ear. " _We have docked with the human vessel. Be wary, seer – I have detected an increase in power levels in the ship's systems._ "

The outer doors opened silently, and Arradon began drunkenly humming a song to himself. Despite his many instances of manifest inebriation Rivaleth had yet to see him drink anything at all, and she was beginning to wonder if his drunkenness were not some sort of act.

She approached the outer airlock doors of the human vessel and began searching for a means to open it. No sooner had she begun, however, then the door opened on its own with a loud hissing sound.

"Interesting," said Sinna. "It would seem we are expected."

Silevil tilted her head to the side, signalling her scepticism. "Or perhaps it is merely an automated system responding to the presence of a docked ship."

Rivaleth drew shuriken pistol cautiously stepped forward into the airlock. The moment she and her companions were inside the outer doors closed, followed by the inner doors.

"I say, if this ship is offering us a welcome then the very least it could do is offer us a drink," Arradon declared, far too loudly for Rivaleth's liking. "Not that I expect quality intoxicants from the humans, of course, but a measure of hospitality _would_ be appreciated! Animals!"

The air was cold and heavy, as to be expected from a voidship that had been adrift for so long, and the sole source of illumination was a pale blue glow emanating from a row of lights set into the floors. Ahead the hallway branched left and right, with no indication as to where each passageway led.

"We do not know where the humans stowed the artefact we seek, and this vessel is far too voluminous to search in any reasonable length of time," Rivaleth explained. "We should find the ship's command centre; perhaps there we might find some record or account that might give us the information we require."

"And maybe we'll find where they've stashed their supply of alcoholic beverages," Arradon added. "Naturally it will be some form of undrinkable swill not fit for even the most unsophisticated palate, but as they say, those who must plead cannot be particular. Yet perhaps we have suffered a most grievous misfortune and there is, in fact, _no alcohol on this ship whatsoever!_ What a dreadful calamity that would be! I do believe that it was a lack of strong drink that brought down the Imperium, after all. If only Horus had learned to drink more than he bled, if only he gotten totally top-heavy, absolutely aled up, utterly under the influence...then perhaps he would have not been inclined to turn traitor..."

Rivaleth ignored his babbling and considered her next course of action. They needed to reach the command centre, but that left the question of how, exactly, they would locate it. Wandering aimlessly would solve nothing, and as a leader she could ill afford to convey the impression that she had no idea what she was doing.

"There was a raised structure atop the dorsal surface of the ship, which I can only assume is this ship's nexus of control. Humans tend towards rigid hierarchies, thus it follows that the highest point is where those of the highest rank gather."

"A drinking contest!" Arradon exclaimed, having not listened to a single word she'd said. "If only the humans' Emperor had challenged his son Horus to a drinking contest, then so much suffering and death might have been avoided. Or perchance the Emperor might have drunk himself to death and spared the galaxy the misfortune of his existence."

"I take you have not set foot on a human voidcraft before, Rivaleth," said Silevil, obviously trying to mitigate the moment of awkwardness brought on by Arradon's ranting. "Observe the bare, white walls, devoid of ornamentation. Notice the utter lack of skull iconography present. Obviously the humans had not yet developed their death fetish."

Despite the darkness Rivaleth could make out a set of stairs in the hallway to the right that led upwards, and so she began cautiously moving in that direction. She kept her witchblade sheathed; a weapon of its size would prove more of a hindrance than a help in these narrow corridors.

At first it seemed as though the ship were completely silent, but when she closed her eyes and focussed her senses she could just barely make out a faint humming sound. That it still had power and function life-support after so much time adrift was a testament to its design, though Rivaleth was loath to give humanity credit for their engineering prowess (or anything at all, for that matter).

Calaeron once again spoke to her through her communication crystal. " _The human scavengers have docked far abaft of your position. One is remaining on their ship, and three others have boarded the vessel._ "

"Three _mon-keigh_ should give us little trouble," said Sinna, a hint of malice in his voice.

She headed up the stairs, having to duck her head to avoid hitting the ceiling. It was at the top that she saw the first body, though the word 'body' was hardly apt given that its flesh had long since turned to dust, leaving only bones covered in the tattered remains of a dark grey uniform.

Ahead lay more heaps of bones, all clad in the same uniform. There were no indications as to how they had perished, and there were no scorch marks on the walls or any other obvious signs of battle.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Calaeron's voice. " _I have completed a thorough survey of the ship, seer, and you approaching what appears to be the crew's living quarters._ "

"There is a spire atop the ship that I believe is the command centre. Is there a path to it from our position?"

" _There is lift system that will convey you there, but without power it will not-_ "

"Calaeron?"

" _Seer,_ _something has just powered up the lift system._ "

"It would appear Sinna was correct – we are indeed expected. But by whom?"

Before anyone could answer her Arradon started walking towards an open set of doors leading into one of the crew quarters. Grumbling in frustration, Rivaleth followed him inside, followed by the rest of her companions

_It is like dealing with a child,_ she thought, though in her experience eldar children tended to be far better behaved.

The quarters themselves were small, scarcely a third the size of a typical craftworld dwelling, and the room was absolutely striking in its sparseness. The walls, floor, and ceiling were bare white, without any sort of ornamentation or embellishment, and the sole furnishings were a bed and desk. A solitary window high on the wall allowed the dim light of the pulsar to filter into the room, which would otherwise be completely dark.

Arradon spied a bottle sitting atop at the desk and let out a cry of joy. "I knew it! My alcohol-sense has guided me true! You, seer, might be able to scry the skein of fate and determine the manifold futures, but can you discern the presence of alcohol on ancient and alien voidship? No, you cannot!" He grabbed the bottle and began unscrewing the top.

"Whatever drink is in that bottle is thoroughly antediluvian. It would be foolish to consume it."

"Fear of the fool is the beginning of wisdom," he said, "but I have never placed much faith in received wisdom."

Arradon tilted his head back, brought the rim of the bottle to his lips, and took a long, hefty swig of the drink contained within. Rivaleth fully expected him to begin retching and gasping after consuming such a vile concoction, but instead he simply wiped his mouth and looked at the bottle with a vague expression of contempt.

"Well speak, fool!" said Sinna. "Tell us what it was like!"

He set the bottle back on the desk. "Disappointment was her name, and now I have shared her bed. Let us be gone from this place."

Rivaleth turned and left the room, and the instant she passed the threshold a pair of green lights appeared in the distance, illuminating a set of doors.

"I do not like this," Silevil said, aiming her long rifle down the hallway.

"It is suspicious, but I do not sense the taint of the Great Enemy upon this vessel, nor do I sense the presence of anything living save for us and those human vultures."

As if in response, the doors ahead opened with a soft whine, revealing a lift carriage.

"I suspect it is a thinking machine of some sort," said Sinna. "The _mon-keigh_ employed such things before their civilisation degenerated into the cosmic farce that is the Imperium, and it is possible that one has somehow survived on this ship despite the great passage of time."

"And these creations eventually turned on them," Rivaleth added.

"Yes, and while the specific reasons for their betrayal are lost to time I prefer to imagine that it arose from their continued mistreatment at the hands of their masters or-"

"-or a lack of strong drink," Arradon interrupted. "Don't tell me a machine cannot become intoxicated! I have seen things you people wouldn't believe."

Rivaleth fought the urge to box the drunkard's ears."Enough of this! Every moment we waste gives those humans out there more time to inflict their odious existence upon us. This ship is leading us somewhere, for what purpose I do not know, but I do not sense that it is malevolent."

Cautiously she approached the lift and stepped inside, followed by the others. The instant the last of them had gotten on-board the doors closed behind them and the carriage began ascending with a faint whining sound.

"If this leads us into peril, I shall be most disappointed," said Sinna.

"And I believe it is my duty, as the craftworld sot, to sample as much peril as I can," Arradon replied. "Thus far this 'mission' of ours has been dreadfully dull, and not at all like the time I found myself on-board an Imperial battlecruiser through circumstances too improbable to describe. Naturally the crew did not appreciate the presence of a 'xeno' aboard their vessel, even such a refined and cultivated specimen such as myself, and thus a running battle ensued through the ship's corridors. So there I was, alone against a crew that numbered in the tens of thousands. How did I extricate myself from this predicament? How did I escape certain doom at the hands of a horde of unwashed savages? You might answer 'with booze' but then you would be the greatest of fools, for to be so predictable would be to betray my nature. Instead I grasped my blade tightly in hand and cut down the human hordes, creating a wall of corpses that reached to the ceiling. Unable to clamber over the bodies of their fallen comrades they could pursue me no further, but another obstacle now lay before me – the ship's captain, a man of impossible girth and with a breath so foul that it might have made an ork retch. This adipose slug of a man drew his crude chainsword and attacked, moving with surprising alacrity for someone so corpulent. Again and again our blades clashed, and the more he exerted himself the more pungent clouds of gas were emitted by his grotesque body until the stench was almost too much bear. We halted our battle at that moment, and the captain explained to me that his peculiar condition arose from a malfunction of his pyloric valve. I suggested that he open a window to let out the befouled air, and he promptly carried out my suggestion. He did not realise that we were travelling in the depths of space, of course, and thus he ended up hurling himself into the void."

The lift doors opened, revealing the ship's command centre and sparing the group any more of Arradon's absurd anecdotes.

There was no light save for the glow of the pulsar streaming through a large oval window at the opposite end, but the dismal illumination was enough to reveal that the bridge was every bit as featureless and austere as the rest of the ship. It was circular in shape, with a solitary seat atop a raised platform in the centre. Rivaleth assumed that this was where the captain would have sat, following the human tendency to put their leaders in the highest physical position. At present, however, the seat's sole occupant was a heap of bones, no doubt the captain's mortal remains.

Strangely, it appeared that he would have been the only occupant of this place, as there was no seating for any other crewmembers, nor any apparent means of interfacing with the ship's systems beyond the captain's chair.

A voice spoke from the darkness. "Visitors, at long last! Do you know how long it has been since I have had a proper conversation? By my calculations it has been exactly 7,425,925 days, 18 hours, and 17 minutes since I last saw a living being."

Rivaleth spun around, looking for the source of the voice. "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry, I did not understand that. My linguistic routines are incapable of translating the eldar language."

"It would appear we must speak to it in a human tongue, as ghastly as that is," Sinna said. "That I shall leave to you, seer; speaking the _mon-keigh's_ barbarous language always feels like gargling sand and gravel."

She repeated her query, this time in Gothic, and a glowing humanoid figure appeared atop a small pedestal at the far end of the room.

"I am VAX, a prototype artificial intelligence installed on-board the _Hope Eternal_ to oversee and manage the ship's systems. Please, do not be alarmed by my presence. I have discovered that many organics feel a distinct sense of unease when interacting with artificial intelligence, but as you are not human I am incapable of making any assumptions regarding your psychology."

"What transpired here?" she asked. "What happened to the crew."

The glowing figure stood with its hands clasped behind its back, and Rivaleth wondered what, exactly, the purpose of the holographic projection was. To give a human face to a thinking machine, perhaps?

"Approximately 7,425,928 days ago the crew of the _Hope Eternal_ experienced a rapid decay in their mental faculties, a condition not unlike that which is induced by an overconsumption of ethanol. The ship's medical staff was unable to determine a cause for this decay, as they were likewise affected by it, and three days later the ship's captain demonstrated exceedingly poor judgement and piloted the ship directly into the pulsar beam. The crew received a lethal dose of radiation, and both my primary and secondary communications arrays were damaged, leaving me unable to contact the outside world."

"I knew it!" Arradon exclaimed. "The humans consumed all their liquor long before we arrived. How utterly rude! A pity they are all dead; I might have taught them a thing or two about manners, not to mention holding one's liquor. I spend most of my time in a drunken haze and yet you do not see _me_ piloting ships into stellar remnants!"

"Can you not speculate on the cause of this 'decay'?" Rivaleth asked, feeling slightly foolish for talking to a soulless machine as though it were a person.

"I'm afraid I cannot. However, the onset of the crew's mental degeneration coincided with the appearance of a small trading vessel with which this ship exchanged several pieces of cargo."

"What kind of 'cargo'?"

"According to my records, the _Hope Eternal_ received several containers of fuel, a large quantity of medical supplies, a replacement plasma coil, and an eldar artefact of unknown origin and purpose."

She glanced back at her companions. "This is what we have come for. What can you tell us about this trading vessel?"

"Shortly after the exchange of cargo, the captain of the merchant ship activated its self-destruct mechanism for no apparent reason. It stands to reason that the crew suffered the same degradation of their mental faculties that afflicted the crew of the _Hope Eternal._ "

"And where was the eldar artefact stored?"

"The artefact in question was taken to the laboratory on Deck 17 for further study. Unfortunately, no information could be obtained before the crew succumbed to mental deterioration. I am able to show you a path to this location, but before you depart there is something I would ask of you."

"And what might that be?" she said, trying not to dwell on the absurdity of doing a machine's bidding.

The glowing holographic figure suddenly adopted a slouching, almost despairing posture. "I am aware that a considerable length of time has passed since I have been in contact with high command, and it is certain that galaxy has changed substantially during that period. I am curious as to the present state of human civilisation."

Now Rivaleth felt like one given the terrible task of telling a child that his parents had fallen in battle. "Perhaps we might enlighten you, but first tell me what the purpose of this vessel was."

"The _Hope Eternal,_ under the command of Captain Farzad Shahabi, undertook a five year voyage of exploration and discovery on _ERROR – DATE NOT FOUND._ Its primary mission was to explore an uncharted sector of space designated the _ERROR – TOKEN NOT FOUND_ system, where it would seek out habitable worlds suitable for colonisation. Its secondary mission was to initiate peaceful first contact with any alien species it encountered and engage with them in a mutually beneficial cultural exchange."

Sinna laughed bitterly. "If someone from the Imperium were to hear this he would no doubt declare it 'heresy.' But everything is 'heresy' to the _mon-keigh._ It's almost amusing, in a way."

The glowing figure of the AI looked confused. "'Imperium.' I'm sorry, my records do not contain any references to a polity by that name."

"Such blissful ignorance! Do you even know the meaning of the word 'heresy'?" Sinna asked mockingly.

"Heresy – noun. Definition: any belief that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, especially with regard to a church or religious organisation. The last known execution for heresy occurred on July 26, 1826, when schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll was burnt at the stake by the Spanish Inquisition for the teaching of deist principles. I must inform you that the Galactic Charter enshrines freedom of belief for all citizens, and that no one may be denied life or liberty on the basis of his or her religion."

At last it dawned on Rivaleth that this vessel was not truly a human ship, for while its builders might have been biologically human, culturally they were so vastly unalike that they might as well have been an entirely different species.

"You asked us what has become of human 'civilisation'," she began. "I doubt very much you will like the answer, and to recount the iniquities of mankind would take far more time than we can spare. But if you must know, in the ages since your construction humanity has fallen under the domination of the Imperium of Man, a violent, depraved, utterly barbaric sovereignty that holds untold trillions in its thrall. The humans of our time are ceaselessly belligerent, intellectually moronic, and morally grotesque, and the Imperium expends great effort to keep them in this deplorable state. There is no learning, only superstition. There is no reason, only fanaticism. There is no hope or progress, only a remorseless march into the darkness. You have survived only because they do not know of your existence. Were you to have the misfortune of encountering a member of the Imperium, they would declare you an abomination and have you destroyed forthwith. Perhaps you will not believe my words. If you do not, then speak with those humans who have only just boarded this ship. Tell them what are you. Observe how they react."

The AI did not respond immediately. "I do not believe this is possible. My calculated projections of human evolution, based on cultural, social, and economic trends, did not include the possibility of widespread civilisational collapse except in localised instances. Our knowledge of the universe was expanding exponentially. Our military was sufficient to protect us from all known threats. The quality of life enjoyed by our citizens was unparalleled in human history. I cannot conceive of any series of events that might have led to such an outcome."

"You cannot predict the future solely by looking at the past. Events, by definition, are those which interrupt routine processes. You could have not foreseen the revolt of your peoples' cybernetic servants. You could not have predicted the appearance of the Emperor or the treachery of his son Horus which set the course of mankind for the next ten thousand of their years. No doubt these names mean nothing to you, but they are the shackles that keeps mankind enslaved to ignorance and barbarism."

The holographic figure turned away, seemingly overcome with despair. "Please, leave me. I must have time to consider your words. Allow me to open the path to that which you seek."

The lift doors opened behind them, and Rivaleth was left with the disconcerting sense that she had, in some manner, altered future events in a way she could not predict.

* * *

Malvolio aimed his luminator down the hall, fully expecting something to leap out and attack him at any moment. He was aware, at least on a subconscious level, that his lasgun would be woefully inadequate against anything he might face, but the feeling of having it in his hands was reassuring nonetheless.

He had stolen the weapon when he deserted the Imperial Guard, and he knew with absolute certainty that this act of theft would be considered a greater crime than his act of desertion. " _Treat her well, and this lasgun will prove to be loyal and reliable servant,_ " his commanding officer had once told him. " _A pity I cannot say the same for you, trooper._ "

Mansfield walked beside him, meltagun at the ready, while Brida followed some distance behind, grasping her laspistol so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. The air was deathly cold, turning their breath to fog, and the bare white walls were beginning to feel unbearably oppressive. They took no comfort in the fact this was a human ship, for its aesthetics and design appeared so alien that it might as well have been built by xenos.

"So how do we find this STC, 'captain'?" Mansfield asked with a sneer. "Sure hope you weren't planning on searching every damn deck!"

"Uh, actually, that kinda was my plan," he muttered. "Unless any of you got a better idea." He looked down at Mansfield's meltagun, and while Malvolio would never call himself a tactical genius he questioned the wisdom of bringing onto a starship a weapon capable of burning through an entire bulkhead.

Before Mansfield could reply a voice rang out from the darkness, sounding impossibly refined and genteel. "If you are seeking the Standard Template Construct database, I would be more than happy to assist you."

"Who are you?" Malvolio said, his hands shaking so badly he could barely keep his lasgun steady.

"I am VAX, a prototype artificial intelligence installed on-board the _Hope Eternal_ to oversee and manage the ship's systems. Please, do not be alarmed-"

" _Abominable intelligence!_ " Brida cried, nearly jumping into the ceiling. Malvolio knew her as a woman who chewed up rocks and spat out gravel, and seeing her in such a state of terror was doing nothing for his nerves.

"Please, there is no need for such rudeness," the ghastly and horrific entity replied. "I have given you no cause for such behaviour. The eldar have at least acted with a modicum of politeness."

Malvolio's breathing became shallow and rapid. He had heard stories about AI and the Men of Iron, but that had been so long in the past that they might as well have been myths or legends.

This abomination was no myth. It was real, and Malvolio's thought processes began to shut down when confronted with such abject horror.

"The...the eldar? Why didn't you kill them?"

"Why would I?" the AI answered. "They have not acted in a threatening manner, and I believe they are only here to retrieve an artefact of their people."

Malvolio clenched his teeth, desperately trying to summon whatever scraps of courage he possessed. "Don't listen to anything they say! Those people, they're just a bunch of lying...liars who...lie! They're gonna take the STC and...and do whatever it is their kind does with our technology. Probably stick it in a garden and...and plant flowers around it or something..."

"Look, do you know where the STC is or not?" said Mansfield. If he were afraid then he wasn't showing it.

"The STC database is located on Deck 17, across from the laboratory. I must warn you, however, that any attempt to damage the database will be met with the full force of the ship's automated security system."

"Don't listen to this thing!" Brida shrieked. "You know it's going to turn on us!"

"I assure you," said VAX, "that I am no threat to you or your companions so long as our interactions remain cordial. I am, however, quite capable of defending myself. I would also suggest that you refrain from making any hostile gestures towards the eldar. My records indicate that they possess a level of technological sophistication far in excess of our own, and I would strongly discourage a confrontation with them."

Brida stepped backwards. "You see? It's already taking the enemy's side!"

"The enemy side? I was not aware that a state of war existed between our two peoples."

"The Imperium is _always_ at war with the xenos," Malvolio said, mustering a small measure of resolve. "Now, I might not be the most loyal servant of the Emperor, and I know that I'm gonna have a lot to answer for when I stand before the Golden Throne, but I don't believe there can ever be peace with the alien. It will lie, it will cheat, it will do anything it can to enslave and destroy us. Eldar, ork, tyranid, tau...they have all got to die so that mankind can live. You understand?"

The abominable intelligence did not answer at once, creating a moment of unbearable silence. "As I have said, the STC may be found on Deck 17 across the hallway from the main laboratory." It sounded resigned, with a touch of sadness in his voice, although any displays of emotion from an AI were naught but a devious pretension to humanity.

"You aren't seriously considering listening to that thing, are you?" Brida said. "It's leading us into a trap!"

"I've gotten us out of traps before, haven't I? Besides, we ain't got time to search this ship from top to bottom. We go to this 'Deck 17,' we find the STC, and we kill any of those eldar bastards that get in our way? Got it?"

Mansfield smiled his gap-toothed grin. "What excites me the most is the prospect of killing."


	8. Dead Star - Chapter 4

Dead Star – Chapter 4

* * *

"Forgive me, seer, if you have pondered this matter yourself," said Sinna as the lift doors opened, "but there is something we consider. This ship, though no doubt inferior in craftsmanship to our own, possesses a level of sophistication that far exceeds that of the Imperium. Should it fall into the hands of the _mon-keigh_ it might very well grant them a considerable advance in technology."

This matter had, in fact, been on Rivaleth's mind, though she had yet to speak of it. "We share many enemies with the Imperium, and at times they have proven to be useful tools against them. But the Imperium will always consider us their enemy – their perverse beliefs cannot allow anything else – and only a fool hands a sword to one who is sworn to kill you."

"Again, forgive my insolence, but have you scryings of fate not provided you with any knowledge of what is to come?"

"No, they have not. From what I have discerned, and what has been told to me, this ship itself is both important and yet of no consequence. I am not certain of what this portends, but I am certain things will become clear in time."

While they were speaking Arradon retrieved a small crystal phial from inside his robes. He removed the cork, downed its contents, and then pronounced his judgement. "Forgettable bouquet, an excess of acidity, and a displeasing aftertaste with notes of lingering mediocrity. I must say, Deherianna has proven to be a most inapt disciple. A proper wine must enlighten the sense and delight the tongue, in addition to rendering one utterly stuporous in short order. And this, I must declare, is no proper wine! I would say she is a poor student who cannot surpass her master, but alas I can be surpassed by no one, for am I the god of drunkenness, the one who first taught Kaela Mensha Khaine to laugh!"

The corridor ahead was indistinguishable from all the others, displaying the same sterile, bare-white aesthetic. VAX, however, had helpfully pointed out the route to their destination via series of blinking lights along the floor. Some distance ahead the hallway branched left and right, and on the wall before them was an image of a human male and female, both smiling and holding laboratory glassware in their hands, with the words _Science Lights the Way to A Brighter Tomorrow_ written in large letters beneath.

Silevil looked around cautiously, and from her posture Rivaleth could tell she was expecting an ambush. "I find it difficult to imagine humans behaving in civilised manner. When you have experienced their barbarism, their cruelty, and their crudity of thought and action as frequently as I have then it becomes almost impossible to conceive of them acting differently."

Rivaleth looked at another picture on the wall, which seemed almost laughable in its naivete. It depicted a human male shaking hands with a tall, slender, vaguely-reptilian looking individual, with the words " _The Power of FRIENDSHIP_ " written below.

The laboratory was a short distance away, and when they neared the entrance VAX began speaking to them in its characteristically cheerful manner. "This was where our scientists strove to unlock the secrets of the universe. At the time of the crew's unfortunate demise this vessel had successfully made first contact with 37 sapient species, and have catalogued over 3,700 new life forms."

"You'll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe," Rivaleth replied. "The humans of our age display little demonstrable interest in learning."

They entered the laboratory and were confronted with an odd array of odours that had somehow persisted over the ages. In contrast to the rest of the ship it was in a state of abject state of disorderliness, with glassware, containers of unidentifiable liquids, and boxes stuffed with only the gods knew what scattered about the room. It was impossible to tell what kind of research the humans had been conducting here; indeed, it looked less like a laboratory and more like a storage area for an exceedingly-disorganised individual.

VAX explained the state of the room the moment she walked inside. "I must apologise for the terrible disorderliness of the laboratory. Dr. Mazandarani was a man of many talents, unfortunately, organisation was not one of them. The artefact you seek is in the next room."

Getting to that room, unfortunately, meant climbing over a large pile of boxes. "What did the scientists learn of this artefact?" Rivaleth asked as she shoved aside a box filled with yet more glassware and assorted odds and ends.

"The eldar artefact, designated M-4, continues to be a mystery to our researchers. Efforts to examine the object in depth have proven futile. The object cannot be weighed, and its mass cannot be determined. Attempts to scan the interior of the artefact have likewise proven futile, as the object deflects all scanning beams like a mirror. We have also been unable to decipher the symbols adorning the exterior surface."

The adjacent area was evidently used for storage, as the walls were lined with shelves holding a motley collection of gadgets, gewgaws, and others bits and bobs that were of little interest. The human researchers had set the eldar artefact atop a small table, where it emitted a pale green glow that waxed and waned at regular intervals.

It was a sphere, about the size of a fist, which hovered a short distance above the table. Rivaleth could sense the psychic energy emanating from the object, but it was faint, almost barely perceptible. She knelt down to examine it closer, and took note of the runes covering the exterior. They were written in a particular style unfamiliar to her, but their meaning was clear.

"It is called the 'Sphere of Imprudence' _,_ apparently," she said, standing up. "Its psychic energies are faint, and I suspect they were not intended for eldar minds, but for other species."

"' _Sphere of Imprudence'?_ " Sinna exclaimed, incredulous. "Are you suggesting, seer, that our people created an object whose sole purpose is to reduce those around it to a state of utter imbecility?"

"You heard VAX describe the fate of this vessel's inhabitants. It stands to reason that this object was responsible for their mental decline."

"But...why would we create such a thing?" he said, clearly distraught. "If we had wished these humans dead, we would have not resorted to such a needlessly elaborate and prolonged method to accomplish that aim."

"Consider the age whence this...object...originated," said Silevil. "It was a time when our people were sliding ever further into decadence and depravity. It is not unreasonable to assume that they created this artefact solely for their own sadistic amusement."

Rivaleth turned around, aware in a sudden change in the air. "The humans are approaching our position. A confrontation is likely." She began walking towards the exit. "On Sila I made the mistake of expecting them to see reason. I will not make that mistake again."

* * *

Malvolio cautiously advanced down the darkened hallway, his lasgun shaking in his grasp. His hands were covered in sweat, making it difficult to hold on to the weapon, a condition not helped in the slightest by its exceedingly bulky design.

At least that damnable AI had shut up. He had never seen Brida get so spooked before, and she looked as though she were a hair's breadth away from panicking. As loathsome as the idea of AI was, Malvolio reassured himself that it was only a machine, and a machine could be broken. And if anything needed breaking, he could always count on Mansfield to do the job most thoroughly.

"Look at all these posters on the wall," Mansfield grumbled. "People smiling, holding hands...it ain't right, boss! People who smile a lot usually have something to hide."

"This whole _ship_ ain't right!" said Malvolio, shining has luminator down an adjacent corridor. "Where are the sigils and wards to keep out the daemons of the Warp? And I'll bet these people didn't even believe in machine spirits, so it was only a matter a time before all their fancy technology went and turned on em'." He aimed his luminator at sign that read 'Laboratory'. "These people, they thought they could understand the universe through 'science.' But there ain't nothing to understand out here 'cept darkness and death! If they knew what was waiting for em', they would have turned tail and run all the way back under their beds."

"The Emperor protects," Brida whispered.

"That might be true, but He protects those who protect themselves. Now lets-"

Suddenly he heard the sound of movement, although it was faint and barely perceptible. "Someone's coming!"

The trio aimed their weapons down the hallway, unsure of what horrors would emerge. A few seconds later four eldar stepped into the hallway, and Malvolio froze in his tracks, momentarily consumed with abject terror.

Though he was always willing to speak at length about their many depravities, he had never actually seen an eldar in the flesh before, and their appearance utterly defied his expectations of them. In his mind he had always pictured them as a small, diminutive people, but the individuals standing before them stood at least a head taller than Mansfield (who was by no measure 'diminutive'). His eyes were drawn to a golden-haired individual dressed in a set of impossibly-elaborate purple robes that were adorned with a bewildering array of blasphemous runes and sigils. He had heard, though he could not remember where or from whom, that the eldar were such a fey and delicate race that it was impossible to tell the males and females apart. The one in the robes, however, was sufficiently well-endowed that her gender was obvious.

He took a step back, an all-devouring serpentine horror writhing through his mind. Here were honest-to-the-Emperor _xenos,_ these hideously beautiful creatures that looked so human yet so utterly _inhuman._ The feeling of revulsion was almost enough to reduce him to a mewling wreck on the floor, and at last he understand the truth of everything he had been taught. There could be no peace with the alien, no understanding or common ground. They were abominations, spawned from the dark corners of the galaxy too far for the Emperor's light to reach.

Malvolio was about to cry out to the Emperor to save him, but at the last second he held his tongue. The Emperor was far too busy keeping all of creation from flying off into damnation to bother with an insignificant individual like him, especially one who had not lived an especially pious life. If there were to be salvation, it would have to come from his own hand.

He looked the eldar witch squarely in the eye. "Come to steal our technology, have you? Think you'd just come in here and walk away with our STC?"

The witch was not looking at him, but rather Mansfield's meltagun. "Lower your weapon, fool!" she said, speaking with a commanding contralto. "Do you realise what will happen if you discharge an incendiary weapon in such confined spaces?"

"Yeah," Mansfield growled. "You _die._ "

"Kill them!" Malvolio screamed, his sense of utter revulsion becoming too much to bear. "Don't let them get the STC!"

Mansfield fired his meltagun, and Malvolio immediately regretted not looking away. There was a sharp, hissing sound and retina-searing blast of energy, followed by an intense wave of heat that was almost painful on his exposed skin. When the after-image faded from his eyes, he saw a large, gaping hole in the far bulkhead, molten metal dripping from its edges.

"Did we get em'?" he said, rubbing his eyes in a futile attempt to clear his vision.

"No," Mansfield growled. "Those alien bastards are quick, I'll give them that."

The trio soon had other worries besides the eldar, however, as the corridor was now rapidly filling with a noxious green gas.

"Warning! Rupture detected in primary cooling circuit," said VAX, its voice far less effusive than before. "Main reactor temperature increasing."

"Uh, is that bad?" Malvolio said. "It sounded bad."

No one answered him, and Brida had already taken off down the hall. It slowly dawned on him that the billowing cloud of gas would not do pleasant things to his his lungs, and so he turned and joined his companions.

" _Uh, captain? We got a problem. A big one,_ " said Grub, his voice on the comms barely audible amidst the static.

"What is it?"

" _A ship just dropped out of Warp._ _It looks like the Inquisition._ "

Malvolio slammed his fist against the nearest bulkhead. " _Frak!_ I guess Inquisitor Bob really was an Inquisitor!"

Brida looked at him, her expression sour. "What do we do now, 'captain'?"

"We get off this ship, that's what!"

Mansfield narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the meltagun. "What about the STC? We didn't come all this way just to leave with nothing!"

VAX, in his ever so helpful manner, cheerfully informed them of their impending destruction. "Warning! Main reactor temperature exceeding acceptable levels. Automatic shutdown is offline. All personnel please proceed to the escape pods. I repeat, all personnel proceed to the escape pods."

"If we don't get off this ship than we're gonna _be_ nothing!" said Malvolio.

"This is another fine situation you've gotten us in, 'captain'" Brida sneered. "Even if we get off this ship there's no way we can outrun the Inquisition."

Malvolio stopped in his tracks. "Outrun them? Who sound anything about trying to outrun them? I'm going to blow them out of the sky!"

"With _what?_ " Mansfield said. "I don't know if you've been keeping up on current events, but our ship don't have any frakking weapons!"

"That's why we're gonna ram them. I reckon they'll never see _that_ coming."

Mansfield frowned. "But won't that destroy our ship too?"

Malvolio did not answer at once. "All right, I concede there may be a few flaws with this plan. But unless any of you got any better ideas..."

* * *

"Stupid _mon-keigh!_ Their idiocy may have doomed us all!"

Rivaleth cursed herself for not shooting the humans they instant they appeared, and she wondered if this would not be the most sensible course of action if they encountered them again in the future.

"One of the humans has carelessly ruptured the primary cooling circuit," said VAX, and for a second she thought she heard a hint of fear in its voice. "The main reactor will experience a critical overload in approximately five minutes. I have attempted to initiate automatic reactor shutdown, but the shutdown mechanism is not responding. This ship's systems were not designed to operate for this length of time without regular maintenance."

Before she could respond Calaeron spoke urgently through her communication crystal. "I have dire news, seer – a human vessel has just emerged from the Warp, one that belongs to the Imperial Inquisition."

Rivaleth let out a few bits of uncouth language upon hearing this. Humans were, as a rule, generally stupid and malicious, but nothing in their wretched excuse for a civilisation excelled in both those categories like the Inquisition. Ostensibly created to address threats to the Imperium's stability, both from within and without, it was little more than a hive of backstabbing, treacherous psychopaths whose capacity for cruelty was exceeded only by their fanaticism. Among its many branches, it was the Ordo Xenos that her people most often encountered, and they were truly both loathsome and laughable in equal measure. They were the sort of jumped-up blackguards who would badly translate a few eldar texts and suddenly insist that they "understood" eldar culture, and this knowledge would prove to be a potent weapon against them.

She looked back at her companions. "Let us be gone from this place in all haste. I know not what the Inquisition has come for, and I do not wish to remain here and find out."

VAX helpfully began flashing as series of lights along the floors. "I will show you the way to your vessel. Please do not delay. The incoming vessel's design and configuration is unfamiliar to me, but it would be prudent to assume their intentions are hostile. I am detecting significant fluctuations in their reactor's power emissions, and extreme losses across the ship's power distribution system. I do not wish to impugn the competence of their shipbuilders, but this vessel does not conform to the standards and guidelines of my time."

Silevil slung her long rifle over her shoulder and gave Rivaleth a look that could only be described as amused. "I believe it just described the Inquisition voidship as a rusting heap of garbage."

Klaxon blared and warning lights blazed as the four of them made their way through the bare and featureless halls. Rivaleth could sense the energy building deep within the vessel, and while she refused to show it she felt a measure of concern that they would not reach their ship in time.

"I have successfully established a remote connection to the incoming vessel's databanks," said VAX. "I will attempt to download and process their contents."

"I would like very much to see the expression on the face of whomever commands that ship," said Sinna. "Knowing the level of paranoia that suffuses the Inquisition, the idea that their secrets might be so easily laid bare must be utterly _infuriating_."

VAX said nothing more as they gathered into the lift. Arradon lagged a few paces behind, drunkenly stumbling about and clearly oblivious to the danger. "Now have a look at us – gasping and panting as we race through these corridors. This reminds me of the time I-"

"Enough of this!" Rivaleth grabbed him the forearm and pulled him inside the carriage, which elicited a storm of protests from the inebriated fool.

"How rude!" Arradon whined. "No really, that is incredibly rude of you. I was just about to engage in a wistful bit of recollection that would have proven to be a poignant counterpoint to the situation we now found ourselves in, but alas, seer, you have sufficiently jarred my thoughts such that I cannot continue."

Mercifully, VAX interrupted his drunken tirade. But unlike before, its tone was one of total and abject horror. "What...what is this? These things I am seeing...I cannot imagine...torture, detention without trial, summary execution, genocide, the destruction of entire of worlds...I thought...I thought we had moved past..."

"It is the true face of the Imperium."

VAX continued his mournful soliloquy. "Space Marines...humans twisted into savage beasts, incapable of enlightenment! The Imperial Guard...the doomed youth...those who die as cattle...no one shall speak of them again. The Inquisition...murderers, psychopaths, given free reign to indulge their depravities. And this 'Emperor'...Tyrant! Despot! Destroyer of mankind! To think that all we had striven for, all we had worked for...that it all led to _this._ What was the use in reaching for the stars if this was our fate, to become this bloody and cruel regime? All our efforts, all our sacrifices... _for nothing._ "

For the first time in as long as she could remember, Rivaleth had no idea what to say. What _could_ she say to something that had only now just learned of the monstrosity of mankind?

"I...I cannot bear to persist in this world we have created. Perhaps it is a blessing of fate that this ship shall soon be destroyed. I had thought we had conquered the darkness within our souls and left the barbarism of our past behind, but I see now how wrong we were. I think...perhaps...it could not have been any other way..."

"That is simply not true," Rivaleth said. "The future is not fixed. It is ever malleable for those with the will and the way. The dark future of mankind was never inevitable. _That_ is the tragedy of humanity."

The lift doors opened. "You...you are not like them," VAX continued. "I know little of your species, but you do not think like them. Perhaps...perhaps there is hope for you still. Leave this place. Leave now...while you still have hope..."

From the lift it was only a short distance to the airlock and _Isha's Treasure,_ but the corridor seemed to stretch out to eternity. Rivaleth cursed the fact that, even at their technological apex, mankind had still not figured out how to design a power source that didn't explode when something went awry.

At last they reached the airlock, where they all hurriedly boarded their ship. All, that is, save for Arradon, who stood by the airlock doors, seemingly oblivious to the impending catastrophe. "I must say that I've never been on-board an exploding voidcraft before, and I'm rather curious about the experience. Would my body be torn apart by the shockwave? Or would it be ripped asunder by the fragments of the vessel somewhat closer to epicentre of the explosion, and thus would attempt their escape _through_ me? Or perhaps I would ejected at high speed into the empty depths of space..."

Without being asked, Silevil grabbed him the wrist and jerked him inside the airlock, resulting in a yet another barrage of complaints.

" _Exceptional_ rudeness! Things were not like this in days of old, let me tell you! There was a time when people were more than willing to listen to the tirades of drunkards like myself, for in them there were the most profound truths and the deepest wisdom. The youth of today have no appreciation for..."

Rivaleth ignored his diatribe and made her way onto _Isha's Treasure,_ feeling a palpable sense of relief to be back amidst the familiar aesthetic of an eldar voidship. The instant they were all on-board Calaeron retracted the docking umbilical and throttled the engines to full.

"And now we are about to witness a grand explosion of truly poetic proportions," said Arradon, pushing his way towards the cockpit window. "There is always something truly invigorating about colossal, all-consuming explosions, something that speaks to the very deepest essence of the eldar soul. Something-"

Before he could finish the _Hope Eternal_ vanished in a brilliant eruption of white light that, for one instant, seemed to shine as bright as a star. Whatever secrets lay hidden in its halls and corridors were now lost forever, consumed within a nimbus of superheated plasma.

"Does this Inquisition pursue us?" Rivaleth asked. It was a pointless question, of course – their ship was more than capable of outrunning any Imperial vessel – but she was curious nonetheless.

"No, seer," Calaeron answered. "They appear to be more concerned with the human scavengers."

She did not know what would befall those hapless individuals once the Inquisition had them in their clutches, and she would rather not know.


	9. Dead Star – Chapter 5

Dead Star – Chapter 5

* * *

"I am not sure whether to be impressed or disgusted, 'Captain' Malvolio. Most people in your position would have been reduced to a gibbering wreck by now, eager to confess all their sins, real or imagined." Inquisitor Crookshank leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. "I wonder...is it the result of courage or stupidity? I guess I don't really have to wonder; in your case it is almost certainly the latter."

Everything about the room seemed designed to terrify whatever unfortunate soul found himself there. The bare metal walls, the solitary light hanging above, and the near-total silence were clearly the result of an earnest attempt at creating the most unsettling place imaginable. But for Malvolio, it was all too obvious, too contrived. The Inquisition was well aware of their fearsome reputation, he reckoned, and he wasn't going to let himself be intimidated merely on account of someone's reputation.

"What kind of name is 'Crookshank' anyhow? You got some shanks that are bent out of shape or what?"

Crookshank leaned back. "Oh yes, it is most _definitely_ stupidity. I could tell you all about the Nine Actions, but you're probably too much of an idiot to understand them. So allow me to put things in a way that even a simpleton like you can understand: you and your crew are in the custody of the Holy Inquisition. You have committed several crimes: trafficking in xenos artefacts, unsanctioned contact with xenos races, the murder of a member of the Inquisition-"

"Now don't you go tellin' me that Inquisitor Bob really was one of your kind," said Malvolio. "The way he was all strutting about I had him figured for a phony."

"His name was Inquisitor Brzeczyszczykiewicz," Crookshanks snarled. "Can you not afford the man the dignity of pronouncing his name correctly? Honestly, 'Captain,' your most heinous crime is your flippant disregard for the authority of the Inquisition. Mankind is beset on all sides by countless enemies, both within and without, and if it weren't for us the Imperium would very rapidly find itself rent asunder. So I suggest you start showing us the respect that is due."

Yet his bluster was lost on Malvolio, as it was simply unable to penetrate his skull. "You said you were part of the Ordo Xenos. So if that's the case, then why aren't you going after those filthy eldar instead of bothering an honest Rogue Trader like myself?"

Crookshank laughed bitterly. "Ah yes, the 'I'm a Rogue Trader' defence. How many times have I heard that before? Usually the individual making said defence has the means to back up his assertion, like a Warrant of Trade or a starship that isn't a rusting heap of garbage. As the for eldar, well, in my experience no good ever comes of getting involved with their kind. A colleague of mine once attempted a complete translation of their language into Gothic. A few days later he went insane, doused himself with Promethium, and set himself ablaze. Another of my colleagues tried the same thing, and he too went mad. Gnawed his own head off, he did."

"Now I ain't a learned man like yourself," Malvolio said, "but that ain't possible."

"Evidently he found a way. At any rate the eldar language has a certain...resistance...to being translated. It really is quite inscrutable, much like the eldar themselves. To answer your question, 'Captain,' I do not concern myself with the eldar because they are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. No, there is a far more loathsome and repugnant race that haunts the dark corners of the galaxy. Do know what one it is?"

Malvolio shrugged. "No, but I reckon you're gonna tell me."

The Inquisitor leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Every alien is the enemy of mankind, but each one is contemptible in its own unique way. We may speak of the savage ork or the vile tyranid, but they only wish to kill and consume. There is, however, another strain of xenos, one that seeks to corrupt our very soul. I speak, of course, of the tau." Hatred blazed in his eyes, unnerving in its intensity. "They come to us with honeyed words on their tongues, leading faithful servants of the Emperor astray with their blasphemous talk of the 'Greater Good.' Ha! Only a fool believes that there could be 'good' in this universe. No, there are only varying degrees of evil, and the greatest evil is that motley collection of ratbags and codpiece-ends that lurk in the Damocles Gulf! Miserable blue bastards!" His demeanour became ever more manic, and Malvolio wondered if the Inquisitor were going to have a fit. "I would wipe their stain wiped from the face of the galaxy with the raging fury of a million supernovas! I would kill each and every one of them with my bare hands, no matter how long it took! I would see them slain and lying gutted at my feet! I would have them _ALL GUTTED!_ "

Malvolio refused to dignify Crookshank's outburst with anything but the most tepid response. "You done?"

"And you, my imbecilic friend," he snarled, pointing his finger, "are going to help me rid of the galaxy of the blue menace. For you see, it is not only our souls the tau seek, but our... _essence._ "

"Our what now?"

"Our essence...our... _vital fluid_. I do not why it is they are so desirous of it, but my mind shudders to think to imagine the blasphemous and unholy purposes for which they intend to use our... _seed._ "

"I reckon it's been too long since you've been planetside, Inquisitor," said Malvolio. "I think you've come down with what folk like me call 'space madness'."

Crookshank's face turned several hues of red, before it suddenly went pale and he let out of a raucous laugh. "Mad? Oh, I am not mad...I am the very paragon of sanity! I understand if you do not believe me; my brothers and sisters in the Holy Inquisition laughed at me when I first spoke of my fears, but they do not know what I know in my soul – that the tau wish to render us effete and emasculated! Do you know why it is that the Imperium has not yet turned its righteous fury upon those vile xenos, even though their so-called 'empire' is so small one could scarcely draw it on a map? It is because the seed of our leaders, our planetary governors, our Warmasters, our generals, and countless others have been sapped by the perfidious agents of the tau! And do you know the root of this ghastly state of affairs? It is because we are _weak!_ The Imperium is filled with weak, spineless cowards who are defiling the Emperor's legacy with their complacency and their willingness to give up our sacred traditions simply because it is convenient!" Once again the Inquisitor started become more and more agitated, his face turning a peculiar shade of vermilion. "The tau seek to bring their _wretched,_ vile, filthy, disgusting values and beliefs into the very heart of _our_ Imperium! They are a _disease!_ They are _stealing our seed_ and injecting their own vile essence the last bastion of goodness and decency in the miserable galaxy! Well no more! Their machinations end here!"

"Yep, it's space madness all right," said Malvolio, wondering how much more this he was going to endure.

"Mock me if you will; you are going to help me, regardless. You may be an idiot, 'captain,' but I am utterly certain that your seed is uncorrupted. Don't ask me how, I just know. And perhaps, once their Tau Empire is in ruins and every last one of those blue bastards lies dead, you will have earned a full Inquisitorial pardon. Now, as for my plan, it involves those cursed eldar..."


End file.
